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 […]
Are Americans Getting Enough Sleep?
Seven In 24 How much sleep is enough for American adults? After a long and difficult debate, the American Sleep Disorders Association finally agreed on a number last year. Their answer – seven hours or more in 24, including naps, will make the cut. So how do Americans stack up? Not too well. In a report […]
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 […]
Returning to Sleep
People complain to me ceaselessly – they can’t get back to sleep. Yet returning to sleep engages the same tools that help you fall asleep. If sleep is as necessary to life as food, why is returning to sleep so difficult? It seems many of us have forgotten how to rest. To fall asleep most […]
