Many folks find they don’t sleep well their first night in a new bed, or anywhere that’s new. Sleep is more fitful and difficult, rest less lasting. In the sleep lab this is known as the “first night effect.” The expectation is strong that sleep the first time in a new, or even a different environment, […]
The Top Three Percent? How We’re Not Getting Healthy
Are Americans Healthy? We hear that Americans are doing better – at least in terms of health. Childhood obesity is not increasing. Adults and children are living longer. But what about the future? A recent study out of Mayo Clinic Proceedings is more disturbing. It looked at ten year old data (it takes a while to research […]
Political Insomnia Disorder
“I can’t sleep!” people keep telling me – even if they’ve slept well their entire lives. “What I saw today was unbelievable, I can’t get it out of my mind!” Television images of fear, rage, intimidation and destruction seep into their dreams: of friends and neighbors screaming at them to leave their homes, workplaces blasted in fire, wars […]
Sleep Loss and the Munchies
An Anatomy of Hunger Unlike marijuana, sleep loss has been entirely legal in all states since the very beginnings of the Constitution. Like marijuana, sleep loss produces a lot of effects you don’t want, ranging from more frequent colds to more common weight gain. But could the actions of brain cannabinoids be common to the effects […]
Why Don’t People Sleep?
“Can’t I just treat my insomnia with a book?” My interlocutor was sure there was a book out there (including one of my mine) that “could get me to sleep just fine.” Certainly many could do with a brief bout of Sleep School – understanding how sleep affects their health, performance, pleasure, pain, income and mortality […]