Archive for the 'Sleep Deprivation' Category

Sleep Deprivation In Adolescents!

Are you concerned about sleeping habits of your adolescent children? Most of the parents who have adolescent children are worried with the sleeping habits of their children.

Of course, it must be a major concern for you, since healthy and enough sleep is very essential for every one, particularly adolescents to maintain better health in future.

In a study, based on sleep deprivation in adolescents, it was found that almost 5% of all adolescents meet the criteria of chronic insomnia.

Sleep deprivation can have many negative side effects on the physical and psychological health of your adolescent. It also interrupts the interpersonal interactions and their ability to perform regular activities.

The consequences of sleep deprivation in adolescents are particularly crucial to understand because the symptoms are closely related to the growth of your adolescent.

So, there are many things that you can incorporate in your children’s lifestyle to alleviate the sleep deprivation problem. Certain most important things that you have to consider mainly include:

Adjust the lighting in their bed room!

Dim lights can mainly help to get good sleep at night. So, at bed time dim the lights in your child’s room and turn off them completely when they fall asleep.

There is a strong association between depression and sleep deprivation.

The suicidal behavior associated with depression has been described as a public health problem and that the full implication might not be scientifically addressed in relation to children and adolescents to the depth that it should be.

Moreover, the suicidal behavior in adults can start in childhood and it should be recognized early.

The study, authored by Maria-Cecilia Lopes, MD, PhD, of Sao Paulo University in Brazil, focused on 303 individuals with pediatric bipolar disorder and pediatric unipolar disorder during depressive episodes. The presence of sleep complaints and suicidal behavior were detected by face-to-face interviews during depressive episodes.

According to the results, 83.8 percent of the patients had sleep disturbances. Poor sleep was more frequent among those with pediatric bipolar disorder and pediatric unipolar disorder, and this was clearly detected by the presence of initial insomnia and sleep maintenance insomnia.

Surprisingly, there was a significant association between suicidal behavior and the presence of sleep complaints in both groups. The proportion of subjects who reported suicidal behaviors with sleep complaints was higher among bipolar than unipolar patients.

Sleep is significantly disrupted for hospitalized pediatric patients and their parents, especially for younger children and on the first night of hospitalization

The 22nd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies (APSS) is one of the first to demonstrate the negative impact of hospitalization on sleep quantity and quality in children and their parents, in particular for younger patients and on the first night of hospitalization.

The study, authored by Lisa J. Meltzer, PhD, of Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, focused on 81 children between six and 21 years of age and 82 parents, who completed the Sleep in a Children’s Hospital questionnaire, providing information about sleep habits at home, the previous night’s sleep while hospitalized, and sleep disruptors (e.g., pain, noise, procedures).

According to the results, sleep patterns significantly differed during hospitalization, with younger children reporting a later bedtime, later wake time, more night wakings, and shorter total sleep time, and older children reporting a significantly later wake time, more night wakings, and longer total sleep time.

For further information visit: Medical News Today

Recent studies found that prolonged working hours are making Americans to feel sleepy at their work.

This situation is occurring as they are not getting enough sleep during nights or the sleep hours might have been reduced due to their longer working hours. But, the lifestyle changes can help in reducing the work stress.

According to the research done by the national sleep foundation, more than 60 percent of the Americans are spending 4.5 hours on additional work from home other than the 9.5 hours of average work in a day.

It also says that Americans are working for more hours and they are trying to cope it with daytime sleepiness.

Some of the facts which have been found in the latest research regarding the sleep and working hours of the Americans are:

• Out of 100 percent working people, 60 percent of them are feeling drowsy in their work and they are accepting their sleepiness going on in their work.
• To lose their drowsiness in their work, out of 100 percent, 32 percent of them are getting addicted to caffeinated beverages. These caffeinated beverages make them to feel active at that time but they will create more heath problems in long run if they consume them regularly.

According to the latest survey conducted on physicians, they are not getting enough sleep necessary for them.

More factors are responsible for this inadequate sleep like current work schedule, sleep timings, work strain, etc.

According to this survey, more physicians are spending less time in their sleep than they need in order to attain peak performance in their work. They said that their work schedule will not make them to attain the adequate sleep necessary for them.

Another factor which is responsible for the occurrence of less sleep in physicians is caffeine [Effects of caffeine on sleep]. Other than normal people, physicians who are more at work risk, consume caffeine more often in order to attain the feeling of freshness.

Caffeine is the substance, which makes mind and body refreshed, but excess consumption of caffeine can destroy the sleep and results in some health problems.

The recent study conducted on sleeping habits of 5000 US physicians sleep habits proved several facts:

• Out of 5000 members, 70 percent of them are not attaining good sleep continuously for at least 7 hours per day.
• 43.5 percent members said that their work schedule is not encouraging them to attain sleep for at least 6.5 hours per day.

Getting a good night sleep improves your mood and alertness level. If you have sleepless nights from many days, you are chronically sleep deprived. Chronic sleep disruption can result in heart and kidney diseases apart from other health problems.

Sleep deprivation activates sympathetic nervous system, resulting in constriction of blood vessels. Therefore, it raises your blood pressure. Chronic sleep deprivation also affects blood sugar regulation.

More insulin is necessary for keeping blood sugar normal if you are sleep deprived. Poor blood sugar regulation and increased levels of insulin are main contributors of cardiovascular disease.

When you are sleep deprived, kidney tubules can sustain significant scarring, leading to kidney disease. Sleep deprivation can also cause other problems like high blood pressure, diabetes and depression.

Know how heart attacks, diabetes and obesity are associated with sleep deprivation and how to prevent them.

Nothing can be more frustrating for you than not being able to sleep. Many of you toss and turn at night to fall asleep.

Researchers identified many conditions such as sleep apnea, snoring, restless leg syndrome, bruxism, sleep talking, nocturnal cramps, night sweats, rhythmic movement disorders and other conditions that can severely affect your sleep and quality of living.

Lack of sleep not only affects your daily activities but also affect your health, resulting in obesity, heart attack, diabetes and early aging. Here are the reasons how lack of sleep affect your health.

Sleep loss can equal to weight gain:

Risk of obesity is related to how much time you spend in sleeping. If you are sleeping for fewer hours, then the risk of obesity is more. If you have sleep apnea, it can lead to sleep deprivation. Sleep deprivation can make you less active. Less active means less exercise. Less exercise can cause weight gain.

Hormones also play an important role in regulating your body weight. Leptin is a hormone that suppresses your appetite and ghrelin is a hormone that boosts the intake of food. Leptin levels decline and ghrelin levels rise with sleep deprivation.

Women are more likely to have difficulty in staying and falling asleep than men and experience more day time sleepiness.

Cardiovascular disease is one of the leading causes of deaths among women and sleep is one of the risk factors. Fifty percent of sleep problems are due to stress. Stress in women is related to work related issues, family and child related issues.

Poor sleep can result in heart disease and heart disease can contribute to poor sleep. Lack of sleep is also linked with heart failure, high blood pressure, atherosclerosis, stroke, heart attack, obesity and diabetes.

All these factors are linked to each other with inflammation. It is the response of the body to injury, irritation, infection or disease.