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Ask Dr. Park: Over-The-Counter Snoring & Sleep Apnea Options: Do They Work?

In this Ask Dr. Park teleseminar I reveal which of the following over-the-counter devices and programs for snoring and sleep apnea really work:

An Interesting Series of Videos on Sleep

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?

Sleep Is The New Black: 5 Steps to Get What You Need and Want

When a Need Becomes A Want

Imagine a day when you can wake up naturally on your own, on time, without an alarm clock, revived and refreshed in the mornings, ready to face whatever challenges that may come your way. You work hard, and play harder, and when you hit the pillow, you fall asleep instantly, sleeping soundly and restfully, without a care in the world.

For most of us, however, things are very different. Getting a good night’s sleep is the holy grail of modern society. We all want it, but it remains as elusive as ever.  So the question is: how can we get more of what we all want and need? The answer is simple: Change your mindset.

Can You Get Instant Sleep?

You may have guessed by now that this article is NOT about the latest sleeping pill on the market. Although it would be easier to pop a pill to get some sleep, the results wouldn’t last too long. In fact, many of the short term solutions out there that promise better sleep fast, only deliver just that: speed without substance. Also, if clinical studies are any indication, taking a sleeping pill isn’t proven to help you get to sleep faster than a sugar pill will.

Sleep in modern times has become commodity—something to be bought, measured and traded. In some cases, it’s even thought of as a nuisance. Who can sleep when there’s so much to do, and so little time to do it in?

More often than not, we ask ourselves, “What can I take (or do) to sleep better?,” rather than, “How can I think differently about my sleep in general?” By cutting out the initial step where we change how we think about sleep, we set ourselves up for failure.

However, if you’re willing to shift your mindset for the benefit of getting more sleep, here are some steps you can take to help you on your quest. Take the time and effort to go through each step and in no time at all, you should be getting the kind of restful nights sleep you need and desire.

Step 1: Learn From Sleep

In yoga or any other discipline where proper breathing is emphasized, observing your breathing before you take control is a common theme. This is what’s emphasized long before the stretching or the poses. Similarly, it’s good practice to observe your sleep quality and habits, being mindful of which activities, foods, or habits give you a good night’s sleep versus a bad night’s sleep. Write down these observations in a daily sleep log, including times you went to bed and woke up, and how you felt in the morning. Once you’re able to observe, reflect on and document your sleep qualities and characteristics, it’s time to either fine-tune your sleep or even undergo a complete sleep makeover.

Before you begin to make any changes to your sleep patterns, it’s important to get yourself in the right frame of mind. Rather than say to yourself, "I just want to sleep better," think about and even write down why good sleep is important to you. I know that this sounds elementary, but clarifying the end result in this way, rather than setting sleep up as the ultimate desired goal, can help you leverage more of what you want in the long run. After all, it’s not the sleep itself that you probably want, but the results that good, quality rest can yield, like your health and vitality. So ask yourself the following clarification questions:

•    If you are able to achieve better quality sleep, what will it enable you to do, feel, or accomplish?
•    Will it allow you to enjoy more of what life has to offer? Like more time to enjoy spending with friends and family without having to struggle with fatigue and exhaustion
•    Will you look forward to getting up in the mornings and not dreading it like you do now?
•    Would losing weight and feeling healthy be important for you?

Next, write down your answers to these questions and rank them as goals in order of importance. Then picture in your mind what you ranked as being the most important aspect of getting better sleep. It may be that you could play with your children without feeling a sense of overwhelming fatigue or being able to look and feel well rested and refreshed at work and throughout the day. Picture them until these visual images evoke the emotions you desire. Anchor these feelings to the specific goals you want to achieve.

Finally, think about the consequences of not doing anything at all. Will you continue to feel too exhausted to do anything? As I’ve stated earlier, without changing the way you think about sleep, as a means and not an end itself, nothing will change even after you get the sleep. This is why sleeping pills let us down, literally.

Step #2: Change The Way You Think About Sleep

Earl Nightingale, a self-improvement guru from the 50′s in his classic recording, The Strangest Secret, states, "We become what we think about." If you are constantly thinking about your ultimate goal, then your actions will reflect your ultimate goal. Just like every important habit in life, you have to take small consistent steps. Always keep in mind your ultimate goal. Then give yourself a reasonable timeframe in which to accomplish your goal and to set small manageable initial tasks for yourself.

How will you know when you’ve succeeded? Again, Nightingale states, "Success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal." Stated another way, making gradual progress toward your goal is considered success. But this takes effort that you must ingrain into a daily habit.

I’ve written various articles in the past on specific steps you need to take to obtain better quality sleep. What I want to focus on here is the mindset that’s necessary to progress towards your worthy ideal, rather than specific steps. Take, for example, the common habit of eating close to bedtime. In New York City, it’s almost a norm that you’ll come home late and eat dinner just before crashing in bed. Or you may have erratic work schedules.

Eating late close to bedtime prevents quality sleep because juices from your stomach can be actively suctioned up into your throat, especially if you stop breathing once in a while (for most modern humans). This not only wakes you up (before you turn over), but also inflames your throat with stomach juices, causing post-nasal drip, throat clearing, chronic cough, and a lump sensation in your throat. (I explain in much more detail why this happens in my book, Sleep, Interrupted.) Drinking alcohol before bedtime is even worse—by relaxing your muscles, it aggravates the obstructed breathing episodes.

Many of you take my advice and have reported to me dramatic changes in not only the quality of your sleep, but your overall sense of well-being and improved productivity during the day. However, there are some of you who absolutely can’t or even refuse to change, for various reasons. Excuses include: I get home too late from work, I have to exercise, or I’m not going to stop going out with my friends. Some insist on a pill for the throat pain, hoarseness, lump or cough, despite the fact that changing your eating and alcohol habits alone may be enough to help. Even if a medication is given, there’s a very low chance that you’ll feel any better in the long run. It’s like giving a cough medication when you continue to smoke 2 packs per day.

Step #3: Don’t Fixate on Sleep

Another mindset change that’s necessary to achieve the goals you desire is to simply become more flexible. In the international bestseller, Thick Face, Black Heart: The Warrior Philosophy For Conquering The Challenges of Business and Life by Chin-Ning Chu, the author points out that one small blade grass, unlike even the tallest trees, can withstand enormous gusts of wind by yielding and bending to the force.

Similarly, the demands of modern society pose many challenges for sleep and rest. Although it may be true working late is an inevitable part of your job, you’d be amazed how well you can work around these challenges once you make sleep a priority.

Yes, we all have certain limitations with our schedules, our jobs and other commitments, but what I’m describing is the limitation of your mind. If your main priority is to sleep better, and you have obvious nighttime habits that are clearly detrimental to your sleep quality, you’ll have to first change your mindset. Only by changing your values and priorities can any real change begin to happen.

If you can’t change your work schedule, you can order out and eat while at work. You can exercise in the morning rather than in the evenings. You can have a large lunch and eat a small snack early after coming home from work. You also have a choice in whether or not to go out late drinking with your friends 2 times per week. Once you decide to make changes you’ll see that there are always options available. Whether or not you choose to make these changes, however, is up to you.

Simply by being consistent with and not resisting the natural biorhythms of our nature, many people have found that not only can they work better, they can enjoy the fruits of their labor that much more. Isn’t that, after all, the ultimate benefits of sleep and work?

What Everyone Should Know About Tonsillectomy

Tonsils are one of the most misunderstood structures in the throat, not only by patients, but by many doctors as well. Traditional teaching states that tonsils are glands in the throat that help to fight infection. Because they are blamed for most cases of repeated throat infections, tonsillectomy is one of the most commonly performed operations in the United States. As I’ll reveal in the remainder of this article, many tonsillectomies today are being performed unnecessarily. Simultaneously, there are too many tonsils still left in place when in fact they should be removed. Here’s the reason why.

 

What Are Tonsils?

Before I can clear up the contradictory statement above, I must first explain what tonsils are and what they do to merit removal, if at all.

Tonsils are lymphoid tissue, like glands in your neck, armpits or groins. They are part of the immune system and are involved in learning what’s foreign and helping to make antibodies to help fight off infections. In young children, lymphoid tissues are very sensitive and can become greatly enlarged even after a simple cold or infection. If you have young children, I’m sure you’re familiar with their complaints of sore throats whenever they have colds.

It’s also important to note, however, that tonsils can swell up not only after viral or bacterial infections, but also from allergies and acid reflux. Any degree of irritation or inflammation can cause the tissues to swell up. This is normal, and will happen to various degrees in people after any type of infection, irritation or inflammation. As such, not all complaints of a sore throat are viral or bacterial in origin. There are many factors for an enflamed tonsil—this is the reason why antibiotics are not as effective in curing sore throats.

What Do Tonsils Do?

Tonsils are part of Waldeyer’s ring, which is a complete circle of lymphoid tissue that is made up of both tonsils in the side walls of your throat, the adenoids, which are in the midline back of your nose, and your lingual tonsil, which is located at the base of your tongue in the midline. In some cases, you’ll see small connections between all four glands, forming a complete circle. Anything that you breathe in or swallow has to go through this “ring”, so that the body can learn what’s coming into the body. This process is most active around ages 3 to 6.

It’s common knowledge what happens when your tonsils become infected: your throat hurts, you have a fever, your neck glands hurt (lymphoid glands that drain your tonsils), and you don’t sleep well. Anything from simple cold viruses to bacteria, and even allergies can cause your tonsils to swell. Streptococcal bacteria are very common, but there’s one particular strain called Group A beta-Hemolytic Streptococcus (GABHS) that tested for and treated, since toxins produced by this strain can potentially damage the heart or the kidneys. In theory, non-GABHS bacteria can also give you similar miserable symptoms, but if severe, doctors will typically give you oral antibiotics, which will make you feel better in most cases.

When Tonsils Mean More Than Sore Throats

But there’s one more variable that occurs during a tonsil infection that’s usually not appreciated—the fact that the tonsil can swell significantly. As I’ve mentioned in my book, Sleep, Interrupted, and in other related articles, humans have relatively narrowed upper airway breathing passageways to begin with, and even mild inflammation and swelling in the throat can narrow this airway even further, almost always leading to various degrees of obstruction and arousal from sleep.

What this means is that, your enlarged tonsils not only affect how sore your throat feels, they can also cause you to sleep poorly. Here’s the reason why.

If the inflammation and swelling caused by an infected tonsil causes your airway to narrow or obstruct entirely and this in turn, causes you to stop breathing, you’ll either wake up to light sleep immediately, or stop breathing for 10 seconds or longer and then wake up. In this latter situation, you would have experienced what’s called an “apnea” or “loss of breath." Most people will have lots of short obstructions and arousals—this is why if you have a simple cold, you won’t sleep as well, since you’ll toss and turn more often than normal. Luckily, in most situations, once the infection goes away, you’ll return to normal.

However, there’s one more piece to the puzzle that can prevent you from feeling better: This is the piece that many patients and even many doctors overlook as well. If you stop breathing, even temporarily, you’ll create a vacuum effect in your throat, where your stomach juices literally get suctioned up into your throat. Small amounts of acid, bile, digestive enzymes, and bacteria can cause your tonsils to stay swollen, aggravating this vicious process. Even worse, your stomach juices can then travel up into your nose or down into your lungs, wreaking more havoc. Add to this a stuffy nose, then another vacuum effect is created downstream, and the tongue can fall back even further.

Certain viruses such as the Epstein-Barr virus (that causes mononucleosis) attack lymphoid tissues specifically, and as a result, keeps the tonsils abnormally large.

This is one reason why patients with this condition have prolonged bouts of chronic fatigue.

Misleading Throat Pain

Most people (and doctors) naturally assume that if your throat hurts, it means that you have a throat infection. If the antibiotics that you’re given works, then it means that it was an infection after all, right? Not necessarily. One of the most commonly prescribed oral antibiotics is called azithromycin (brand name is Z-Pak), which is a convenient 5 day course. One of the lesser known beneficial side effects from this medications is that it empties your stomach faster. So by keeping your stomach juices from coming up, your throat will feel better relatively quickly, sometimes working faster than what you’d expect from typical antibiotics. The problem with this medication is that it only works sometimes in some people, and the effect begins to wear off after a few doses.

Notice how for many people, cold and sinus “infections” always start in the throat, with a tickling, sore throat, mucous accumulation, hoarseness, cough and post-nasal drip, all of which are symptoms of throat acid reflux. Then as swelling in the throat worsens, more and more juices are brought up into the throat, causing more swelling. If you have larger than normal tonsils, then the narrowing in your throat will be more severe and you’ll stop breathing more and more often. If this process continues, the end result will be the classic bronchitis or sinusitis.

Normally, tonsils shrink down to very small glands by the time you’re an adult, but for some people, they stay enlarged. One possible explanation is that they are subjected to repeated bouts of inflammation from stomach juices, and the large tonsils can bring up more stomach juices.

A Rite of Passage?

In the 50s to 70s, it was a given that if you had tonsils, they were removed. The number of tonsillectomies has dropped significantly since then, but more recently, it’s climbing back up. The main reason for tonsillectomy back then was for recurrent infections, but now obstructed breathing is the most common indication.

We now know that even mild degrees of sleep-breathing problems in children can cause a wide range of problems, from bed-wetting and ADHD to behavioral issues and asthma.

A recent study published in the journal Pediatrics showed that about 50% of children with ADHD could be cured with adenotonsillectomy (this is when you remove both the adenoids and tonsils). Countless studies report significant improvement in children’s cognitive, behavioral, memory and sustained attention scores, after tonsillectomy. Even my son Jonas had dramatic improvements after his tonsillectomy.

Not all children with ADHD have a sleep-breathing disorder, but since it’s such a common condition that can be treated, it’s worthwhile to at least consider it if your child has ADHD. People are always asking why a stimulant medication such as Ritalin helps children focus and remain calmer. The answer is that they’re sleepy.

Poor quality of sleep can also heighten a child’s senses and cause abnormalities in their involuntary nervous system, making him or her have balance problems or become hypersensitive to certain sensory forms of input, such as touch, sounds or odors.

The Truth About Tonsillectomy

Unfortunately, not all children who undergo tonsillectomy improve. A recent meta-analysis combining multiple tonsillectomy studies showed that overall, about 2/3 had significant benefit. Some children do somewhat well, but not as well as some others. The explanation here is that the tonsils are not the only part of the equation. By definition, if your tonsils are large, then your jaws will be smaller. I’ve mentioned in my book, Sleep, Interrupted that modern humans have smaller jaws than our ancestors even a few hundred years back, mainly due to a change in our diets (from organic foods off the land or oceans to processed foods with refined sugars). Bottle-feeding is another modern Western phenomenon that has been shown to aggravate this process. If you have smaller jaws to begin with, you’ll have more inflammation in your throat via the mechanism that I described earlier, which will predispose your tonsils to become enlarged. Having large tonsils will cause more obstructions, causing a vacuum effect, which can also narrow your jaws, especially since a young child’s jaws are relatively soft and malleable.

A recent study showed that compared with tonsillectomy alone, orthodontic palatal expansion was equally effective. When both procedures were performed, the results were additive. This study goes to show that dental and orthodontic issues may be important considerations long before parents consider braces for their teens.

Outgrowing Your Tonsils

Some of you may be asking, if the tonsils are an important part of the immune system, why take them out? Most of the early education of your immune system occurs before age 6. Either during this time, or even long afterwards, if your tonsils are so large that they literally obstruct your breathing at night, then wouldn’t you think that this is a more important issue that needs to be dealt with? Doctors will also say that children will “grow out of it.” Yes, in most cases, they will, but based on all the recent studies, there’s plenty of evidence that before they “grow out of it,” there can be potential long-term consequences, including your risk for developing obstructive sleep apnea, heart disease, heart attack and stroke later in life.

I once heard a presentation at a national sleep meeting, where they showed children who underwent tonsillectomies all improved dramatically. The disturbing finding from this study was the fact that compared with children who did not have sleep-breathing issues, the children who underwent tonsillectomies never fully caught up to the control children in terms of cognitive and behavioral measures. What this implies is that there’s some degree of permanent brain damage. Fortunately, children’s brains are highly adaptable, and can compensate very well.

By no means am I advocating routine tonsillectomies for all children. But if your child has any of the issues that I talked about in this article, or if you’re on the fence about whether or not your child should undergo some type of treatment, these issues are definitely worth thinking about.

Sleep And Grow Rich: 5 Steps to More Restful, Rejuvenating, Refreshing Sleep

Napoleon Hill, in his classic book, Think and Grow Rich, details the mindset changes that are necessary to achieve success at life, accomplish goals, and live a life of abundance. In a similar way, your ability to obtain quality and refreshing sleep also requires changes in how you think about sleep before you take the necessary physical steps.

Sleep Better, Live Better

Numerous research studies have shown that a good night’s rest is vital when it comes to your ability to focus, concentrate, remember, be creative, and various other mental and cognitive abilities. Your athletic abilities are also enhanced significantly when you sleep well. Needless to say, consistent, high-quality, refreshing, rejuvenating sleep can enhance almost every aspect of your emotional, mental, physical, sexual, and spiritual live. Unfortunately, in our fast-pased, information-driven, stress-filled modern lives, sleep is the first thing that’s sacrificed when we have too much work to do. The common corollary to getting that promotion or making more money is to work harder, and longer, and in the process, forgo even the most basic necessities. Forgoing a balanced meal, and substituting fast food instead, and sleeping less to work more, becomes the habituated norm for the success minded. Nonetheless, how can you enjoy the fruits of your success if you’re so tired and sick all the time?

Reasons For Your Sleep Deficit

Sleep deprivation can be so insidious and cumulative that you may not realize that your depression or anxiety may be from months or years of chronic low-grade levels of poor quality or quantity of sleep. Not only are we not getting enough sleep, our sleep quality has diminished significantly in modern times. In my book, Sleep, Interrupted, I explain how due to major changes in our diets and with the addition of bottle-feeding, our jaws are much more narrow with dental crowding. Smaller jaws leads to smaller breathing passageways, especially when we’re on our backs and in deep sleep (due to muscle relaxation). This leads to various degrees of partial to full obstruction, disrupting deep sleep, and preventing you from getting restorative, refreshing, and rejuvenating sleep.

Sleep Well and Prosper

Here are 5 habit and mindset changes that will help you to begin your journey towards a better nights’ sleep today.

1. Make an appointment with yourself at bedtime. If you had an important job interview or meeting, would you ever come late because you had some work left to do or you wanted to finish watching your TV show? Think of sleep as an appointment that’s just as important as an important meeting. Dr. Mao of AskDoctorMao.com recommends setting an alarm to go to sleep, as well as for waking up.

2. Plan your activities well during the day so that you can fall asleep quickly and stay asleep. What you do during the day has significant effects on how well you sleep at night. Exercising in the morning exposed to early morning sunshine can strengthen your internal sleep clock. Eating healthy meals with lots of fiber and multi-colored vegetables will not only keep you regular, it can also affect the the type of foods that you’ll crave, since your appetite, weight and sleep are all inter-related.

3. Set SMART goals. Commit yourself to goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, reasonable, and timely. Rather than just saying, "I want to sleep better," say something like, "I’m going to eat 3 hours before (8PM) going to bed (at 11PM) for the next 7 days," or "I will get up at 6 AM to jog 3 miles on Tuesday and Thursdays for 4 weeks. Yes, getting better sleep is your bigger goal, but it’s easier to succeed if you break it down into small bite-sized chunks that have SMART features.

4. Be mindful of how well you sleep in relation to your diet, activities, and your sleep times. The best way to is document this by writing everything down in a sleep journal. Short of doing this, be more aware of how you feel in the morning or during the day after you went out to have a late dinner, or during the weeks when you exercise. Which foods make you feel better and which make you feel more tired or sluggish? Bare minimum, make a quick mental note of how well you slept when you first wake up and how you felt during the day as you’re about to fall asleep.

5. Unclutter your mind just before you sleep. Turn off all forms of electronic stimulation such as your computer, TV, and radio at least one hour before you go to sleep. Watching the news is the worst thing you can do, since not only is it stimulating, but also disturbing stories and images that you don’t want cluttering up your subconscious during sleep. Read a relaxing book, do some light stretching, breathing or meditation before going to bed.

There are plenty more tips I could list here for you, but all of this is a moot point if you can’t breathe properly at night while you’re sleeping. Any by definition, all modern humans are susceptible to breathing problems while sleeping to various degrees. This is the one major flaw with Western medicine as well as alternative and complementary forms of healing. Everyone naturally assumes that you’re able to breathe properly at night. But this is not true. You can do everything I listed in this article, as well as every sleep hygiene recommendation that’s mentioned in thousands of books, articles, and reports, but if you’re not able to breathe well, you can only get so far. Lack of inspiration can definitely hinder your brain’s ability to think at all, let alone sleep or grow rich. Something to think about.

Sleep More, Lose Weight

Health care reform is making big news now,  and from what I’ve gleaned from the press, it’s a mess. I’m not too optimistic about any solutions. There are too many interests involved and no one wants to give an inch. 

However, with all the studies coming out showing the benefits of more sleep, I have a suggestion for Mr. Obama: Have a national sleep more month, where everyone in the country makes a commitment to sleep 30 to 60 minutes more every night for one month. There are studies showing that better sleep improves everything from energy levels, to weight loss, to improved memory and cognition,  and lower blood pressure and glucose levels. 

In the February issue of Glamour Magazine, I was quoted in an article where they had overweight women volunteer to change one thing for 10 weeks: sleep 7 1/2 hours every night. Women who stuck to the plan lost anywhere from 6 to 15 pounds automatically, without doing anything else differently. 

Imagine if they continued this regimen for one year. Imagine if everyone in the US followed this regimen. There would be much lower levels of high blood pressure,  depression, diabetes, and heart disease. Think of the billions of dollars in health care savings, just from sleeping a little longer every night.

For those of you that get stressed even thinking about this, think again. You may be thinking that you’ll lose valuable time by sleeping more. What you may not realize is that by sleeping longer, you’ll be much more clear-headed, more energetic, and much more productive.

It’s 10 PM now. I’m going to bed.

5 Simple Ways You Can Sleep Better While Traveling

There are many resources available regarding tips for travel while on vacation, but one thing that can definitely ruin your vacation is poor sleep. You may never think that you will suffer from sleeping problem until it happens, and by then, it’s too late. Besides the various stresses of travel, including delayed flights, misplaced luggage, or traveling with children, the last thing you need is to lay down in your hotel bed, and start tossing and turning, unable to sleep. If you are a poor sleeper to begin with and especially if you normally can’t sleep on your back, then the following travel tips could prevent your vacation from turning into a disaster.

 

 

 

Unusual Gear To Combat Swimmer’s Ear

 Ear Problem #1: Swimmer’s Ear 

• Itching
• mild to moderate pain
• fever
• ear fullness
• decreased hearing
• swollen lymph nodes
• ear drainage 
 

If you do NOT have a perforated eardrum, rubbing alcohol or a 50:50 mixture of alcohol and white vinegar used as ear drops will evaporate excess water and keep your ears dry.    

Old Wives’ Tale or Eastern Wisdom?

After our third son Brennan was born, I noticed that my wife wasn’t eating the tofu that she made for dinner. She commented matter of factly that post-partum women shouldn’t eat tofu or any soy products. This seems to be common knowledge in East Asian cultures, handed down from mothers to daughters. 

In retrospect, it makes total sense, medically. During pregnancy, progesterone is very high, but drops significantly after delivery. We know from studies that progesterone, in addition to it’s reproductive functions, acts as a respiratory stimulant and upper airway muscle dilator. It’s been found to stimulate muscle tone in your tongue. Since all humans’ tongues can fall back due to gravity when we lie on our backs, and sometimes obstruct when we’re in deep sleep (due to muscle relaxation), having less progesterone can cause more frequent obstructions and arousals and prevent achieving deep, efficient sleep. This is what also happens during menopause (very slowly) or just before before women’s periods.

 

We all know that women naturally gain weight as they progress through pregnancy, and this would expect to cause or aggravate sleep-breathing problems due to gradual narrowing in the throat. But progesterone acts to protect the upper airway by increasing muscle tone and respiratory drive. Once you deliver your baby and progesterone drops, you’re left with all the extra weight, but no more progesterone to help you out. This is one good explanation for post-partum depression.

 

Soy has known estrogenic properties, so if you increase your soy intake just after delivering a baby, along with significantly lowered progesterone levels, the estrogen to progesterone ratio increases, lessening progesterone’s effectiveness.  This can lead to worse quality sleep and not feeling refreshed after waking up in the morning. 

 

It seems that the early Chinese medical doctors realized this through astute observation, and this wisdom has been handed down through the centuries. 

What the Makers of Viagra Missed

A recent poll revealed that the most common reason for lack of desire in intimate relations was that people are just too tired. Needless to say, drugs like Viagra and similar medications are selling like hotcakes. And for good reason: Lack of sexual desire and function is rampant in our over-stressed, overly tired society. And just like many other medications for chronic conditions such as high blood pressure, diabetes, depression and anxiety, these medications only cover up the end-resulting symptom without addressing what’s really causing the problem. It may be debatable as to what that original cause is, but one thing’s for sure is that either lack of sleep quantity, or lack of efficient sleep can definitely aggravate, if not cause every disease previously mentioned.

The Connection Behind Sleep and Sex

Sexual desire and arousal, just like every other body function, is regulated by the involuntary nervous system (or the autonomic nervous system). This nervous system is divided into two parts: the sympathetic nervous system (the fight-or-flight state), or the parasympathetic nervous system (what regulates digestion, sleep, and reproduction). There’s a relative balance between these two states, one being more activated, depending on what you need to do. However, if there’s too much stress of any kind in your body, then the sympathetic portion dominates and ends up suppressing the parasympathetic portion. What I’m talking about is an internal, physiologic stress. However, any kind of external stress (psychological, emotional or physical) can aggravate the internal stress as well.

One of the most common reasons for increased stress in our modern society is lack of good, quality sleep. Not only are we not sleeping enough since many of our modern conveniences like the light bulb, cell phones, the internet, and very bright LED lights on our electronic appliances make it much more convenient not to, we are also not able to sleep efficiently due to our inability to breathe properly at night.

What I describe in my sleep-breathing paradigm (see my book, Sleep, Interrupted: A physician reveals the #1 reason why so many of us are sick and tired) is the concept that all modern humans are unable to breathe properly at night, especially in deep sleep. Due to a gradual narrowing of our jaws in the last 50 years, along with dental crowding, we have relatively less room for our tongues, leading to potential collapse due to muscle relaxation in deep sleep. Most people with these issues prefer to sleep only on their sides or stomachs, but some people can only sleep on their stomachs.

As a result, even if you can get the requisite 8-9 hours of sleep, those with mild to moderate sleep breathing issues, like snoring (see this month’s article: Solutions for Your Bed Partner’s Worst Sleep Problems) and upper airway resistance syndrome, can be affected. Yet when 85% of the people who have a more severe form of this problem, like obstructive sleep apnea is not being diagnosed, it’s most likely that those who have milder sleep breathing problems get diagnosed and treated inappropriately as well. This may be why viagra and sleep aids are so popular even though they may not be all that effective over the long haul.

Sleep Can Be Better Than Viagra

So how exactly does lack of quality sleep affect sexual desire and functioning?

As I mentioned before, sex is controlled by both the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems, in both men and women. Arousal is activated by the parasympathetic nervous system. In men, this leads to sexual desire and erection. Orgasm is activated by the sympathetic nervous system. But it you have too much "stress," then you can have various problems such as not being able to maintain an erection, or have premature ejaculation. Erection occurs when a certain muscle that surrounds an artery that normally constricts a blood vessel that goes to the penis relaxes. This relaxation response is stimulated by the parasympathetic nervous system. What Viagra and similar medications do is to artificially relax this particular penile muscle, but this can cause symptoms due to increased blood blow in other parts of your body as well (leading to headaches, flushing, stomach irritation, and other numerous side effects).

If you are one of those people who have narrow airways, and therefore aren’t breathing properly at night, or if you have a severe form of this sleep breathing condition called, obstructive sleep apnea, you’re probably suffering from chronic deep sleep deprivation, which causes a low-grade degree of physiologic stress. This can feed into the various sexual arousal and performance problems that I described earlier. Any additional stress from your job, relationships or even your financial worries can aggravate your internal physiologic stress levels. This ends up over-stimulating your sympathetic system, leading to an inability to activate your parasympathetic nervous activation. There are various breathing techniques that can help to stimulate your parasympathetic nervous system, which delays orgasm for men whose sympathetic nervous system comes into too quickly.

On the other hand, even if everything goes according to plan, getting pregnant may be difficult if the woman has similar sleep breathing problems. The other resulting cause of inefficient sleep can be that you’re able to get pregnant, but are unable to maintain the pregnancy. Knowing that elevated stress hormones can significantly alter reproductive hormone levels, it’s not too far fetched to see why our sleep quality can wreak so much havoc on one’s ability to have a healthy and vital sexual functioning.

So if you’re one of those people who think viagra make you more vital, think again. What you may actually need is to breathe better, so you can sleep better.

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Copyright © 2012 Doctor Steven Y. Park, MD | New York, NY | Integrative Solutions for Obstructive Sleep Apnea, Upper Airway Resistance Syndrome, and Snoring · Design by Fervent