Sleepy, Sleep Pilots A recent Sleep In America poll found that a quarter of pilots feel sleepy on the job. Another 60% nap on the job, and 20% feel they have made serious errors as a result of sleepiness. Why Is This Happening? Shift work. Similar problems occur with train drivers. Only about half of […]
Time rules life (2/27/12)
Time Rules Life The Romans knew it two thousand years ago – everything in life is timed. Your body is a hive of interlinked clocks. Some operate over less than a second, others work over seasons or years. Yet the most studied internal clocks are those that control our 24 hour day. Called circadian – […]
Noisy, sleepless hospitals (and how to rest in them – 1/25/12)
When You’re Ill You Really Need Rest Rest is as necessary to life as food. Without it the body does not restore and regenerate. Hospitals don’t seem to fully understand that connection. A new study of noise in hospital rooms, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, was not good news. The average hospital room […]
A different way to Diabetes (1/23/12)
Food or Sleep? Paula Deen may be getting the headlines, but diabetes is a threat to America’s health – and to our economy. If present trends continue – in some ways things are getting worse – perhaps one third of Americans will become diabetic by 2030. Diabetes means that our main fuel source – glucose […]
Can kids get addicted to the internet? (1/16/12)
Compulsion or Addiction? Can you get addicted to internet use? A new Chinese study in PLoS 1 argues that it certainly happens; that it clearly changes brain and behavior; and that the brain changes seen are in many ways similar to what happens with drug addiction and gambling. Kids Who Can’t Stop The adolescents – aged 14 […]