Monthly Archives: August 2014

There have been a lot of reports issued recently regarding the relationship between obesity and sleep deprivation, but perhaps none tell the tale quite as clearly as the study that’s about to be released in the September issue of the journal Appetite.

The study was conducted by researchers at the University of Chicago, who found that sleep-deprived overweight adults who added an average of 96 minutes of sleep per night experienced 14% reductions in their appetite. Perhaps even more important, their cravings for the high sugar, sodium-laden foods that they normally looked for were cut by a dramatic 62%.  Continue reading →

As a kid, I frequently had a hard time falling asleep, or staying asleep. Part of it may have been a state of perpetual excitement about whatever was going to happen in school the next day, part of it may have been the fact that my room was situated directly above my home’s heater, and every time the thermostat shut it down it would make a loud bang and the sound would travel straight up the vent into my room, waking me up. Whatever the reason, I developed a number of magical ways to get myself back to sleep, ranging from rearranging myself so that my head was down where my feet belonged or creating a cocoon of blankets and comforters on the floor and sleeping there. They all seem pretty silly to me now, but one of my childhood insomnia cures has stayed with me, and still seems to work – sticking my feet outside of the covers when I go to sleep. Continue reading →

High-tech mattresses, expensive luxury sheets, white-noise machines … it seems like when it comes to getting a good night’s sleep, some people are willing to pay just about anything. And with the attention that the dangers of sleep deprivation and sleep disorders has been getting in the news these days, it’s no wonder. Lack of sleep has been blamed – and rightly so – for a number of tragic accidents, for lost productivity in the workplace, for increased potential for Alzheimer’s disease and other degenerative brain diseases, for weight gain, and many more causes for serious concern.  Continue reading →

Though most people imagine older males who are overweight, perhaps even obese when the subject of obstructive sleep apnea is raised, the truth is that sleep apnea can occur in either males or females, young people or old, slim or obese. In fact, sleep apnea is commonly seen in children. But one of the biggest differences between sleep apnea in kids and sleep apnea in adults is that where the adult version of this serious condition generally arises from health issues that can raise a variety of concerns, in children obstructive sleep apnea is often the result of swollen tonsils and adenoids. Continue reading →

An announcement by the creators of the Shine activity monitor has the sleep monitoring community all abuzz. Misfit wearables has announced that they will be partnering with Beddit, the maker of a super-sensitive consumer sleep tracking system. The Misfit Beddit Sleep System is designed to be placed under the sleeper’s bed sheets, and unlike many sleep monitors that have been criticized for being light on features, the Beddit will be able to provide users with information about everything from the amount of movement that they show in a night’s sleep and the way that they are breathing. Continue reading →

Women have always worked hard. The traditional role of homemaker and mother was always an exhausting, demanding, full time job, and for those who have chosen to add working out of the home to that already tiring workload, as well as for those who have chosen alternative paths, the problem of sleep deprivation is ever present. Though insomnia and other sleep disorders have been named a national epidemic, the problem is often exacerbated for women. The tendency to take on responsibility for too many things and the additional factor of hormones mean that women are often running on far too little sleep. Continue reading →