Flextime – Flexwork Americans are severely rest deprived. Combine 24-7 electronic availability with fast changing (or disappearing) jobs plus kids and elderly parents, and Americans are regularly slipping to around 6 and a half hours of sleep a night. Those are levels at which weight gain, increased cardiovascular disease, more flues, colds, and other infections […]
“Don’t talk to the patient” (12/16/11)
A Nurse’s Story You know things are screwy if nurses can lose their jobs for talking to patients. A nurse I know at the main regional hospital has an excellent record, plus decades of experience on medical wards. She was admonished that she was “wasting” too much time talking to patients. “They told me to […]
Who can I sleep with safely? (12/14/11)
Love, Strangulation and Suffocation When you see public health advertisements placing a meat cleaver next to a sleeping infant, it’s clear co-sleeping is no longer a simple matter. Milwaukee’s Health Department has received has enormous flack, but officials are convinced their ads keeping infants from parental beds will save many from strangulation and suffocation. But […]
Can you cut your cancer risk by half? (12/12/11)
Health Versus Health Care America’s health care budget is 2.6 trillion dollars. On its own it would rank as the fifth largest economy in the world. We’re 49th in overall mortality. How much of this vast spending goes to health prevention? A pittance. Not enough people make money on preventing illness, though plenty make money […]
Overcoming a bad night’s sleep (12/7/11)
Bad Night Who’s a perfect sleeper? Gaze in a mirror and you’re probably not looking at one. In Gallup polls, perhaps only 5% of the population says they sleep well every night. Yet lots of people have bad nights, with perhaps one third of Americans complaining of insomnia that goes on and on and on. […]