According to the recent research, sleep apnea is usually considered more as a disorder in older men, but this is also prevalent in older women, particularly those who have reached menopausal state.

Menopause, despite of age is linked with poor sleep quality and sleep problems like sleep apnea.

These types of sleep problems are thought to be linked with hormonal functioning and also with psychological factors.

Hot flashes, the main symptom of menopause, that occur during sleep have the great ability to affect your sleep qualityby bringing you from a deeper and more restful stage of sleep to a lighter, restorative and less restful stage.

Hot flashes before going to bed can also cause insomnia. But, frequently the causes of insomnia associated with menopause are mainly due to increased anxiety and depression and these can greatly affect the time it takes to fall asleep.

In a premenopausal woman, the occurrence of sleep-disordered breathing, apnea and snoring are quite small, but these appear to rise dramatically after menopause.

But, according to the recent research, the menopausal effects on sleep apnea and snoring are mainly due to increased weight and age other than directly from changes in hormones of menopause stage.

According to new study by Australian researchers, a lack of sleep can have a bad affect on the ability of children to both learn and interact at school.

The new study by researchers from the Centre for Community Child Health at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, Melbourne, has revealed that nearly a quarter of children aged six and seven have poor sleeping habits, which has a major effect on their health, behaviour and learning ability.

The researchers said that almost 25% of six and seven year olds have trouble sleeping and those with the most persistent sleep issues suffer the most serious health, behavior and learning problems according to their parents and teachers.

According to the researchers, a lack of sleep affects concentration and how children interact with peers and teachers.

They say previous research had shown children are more likely to drop out of school if they had a poor early transition to formal education and if they have enough sleep children are able to make the transition and take on the workload while their brains are still growing and taking in a lot of information.

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Regular practice of tai chi chih, a Westernized version of the ancient Chinese martial art of tai chi, can help older people rest easier at night[good night sleep], according to a study in the journal Sleep.

Studies show that more than half of older adults experience sleeping problems at least a few times a week, Irwin and his team note in their report.

Nearly two-thirds of people who learned the slow, gentle tai chi chih moves experienced significant improvements in sleep quality, compared to about one-third of those who participated in health education sessions that included information on how to get a better night’s rest.

In fact, the benefits of tai chi chih were similar to those seen with drugs or cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), study chief Dr. Michael R. Irwin of the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA told Reuters Health.

To investigate whether tai chi chih might be an option, Irwin and his team analyzed sleep quality in 112 people aged 59 to 86 participating in a randomized, controlled trial of the martial art for preventing shingles. Tai chi chih instruction was given in 45-minute sessions, three times a week.

According to research by Rush University Medical Center, difficulty falling asleep and staying asleep increase as women go through menopause .

Waking up earlier than planned also increases through late perimenopause but decreases when women become postmenopausal.

“Sleep difficulties, especially problems staying asleep[sleep problems], are relatively prevalent concerns among women going through the menopausal transition,” said Dr. Howard Kravitz, associate professor of psychiatry and preventive medicine at Rush University Medical Center and a principal investigator of the study.

“Approximately 16% of postmenopausal women report having difficulty falling asleep and 41% report waking up frequently during the night.”

Compared with other ethnic groups, Caucasian women were more likely to report difficulty staying asleep, while Hispanic women were less likely than other ethnic groups to wake several times during the night.

Hispanic women were also significantly less likely to report waking early than other ethnic group. Compared with Hispanic, Caucasian, African American and Japanese women, Chinese women were more likely to report early morning awakening.

In naturally postmenopausal women, women who were on hormone therapy had less trouble falling asleep and waking several times during the night than naturally postmenopausal women not on hormone therapy.

Did you notice your kid grinding teeth severely in sleep? This type of grinding teeth in sleep or during extreme stress conditions is commonly referred as bruxism.

If you are anxious about bruxism in your kid, then don’t need to be because this is the most common condition experienced by many children and it doesn’t cause any serious harm to your kid’s health.

However, teeth grinding is mainly caused when you experience severe stress or anxiety.

Usually, bruxism happens in sleep and often caused by abnormal biting or crooked teeth. Not only children, even adults can experience this sort of teeth grinding at sometime in their life.

How does bruxism affect your kid’s tooth health?

Normally, bruxism doesn’t cause any harm to your child’s teeth. Most of the bruxism cases usually go undetected without any adverse effects. But, at times, your kid can experience mild earache or morning headaches.

However, the grinding sound made by your kid can become most bothersome issue for you and also for your other family members.

If your kid is experiencing extreme levels of bruxism, it can lead to increased temperature sensitivity, chip teeth and also results in diminishing of tooth enamel.

Lack of both the fragile X syndrome gene and one that is related could account for sleep problems associated with the disorder, which is the common cause of inherited mental impairment, said a consortium of researchers led by scientists at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.

Mice deficient in the fragile X mental retardation 1 gene (FMR1) and a similar gene called fragile X-related gene 2 (FXR2) have no rhythm to their wake and sleep pattern, said Dr. David Nelson, professor of molecular and human genetics.

Normal mice have a sleep-wake cycle of just under 12 hours awake and 12 hours asleep. Exposed to light and dark, they are awake in the dark and asleep during the light because they are nocturnal animals.

If they are kept in the dark, their cycle reduces by about 10 minutes per sleep-wake period but remains fairly normal. When mice do not have either FMR1 or FXR2, they have a slightly shorter cycle but the difference is not dramatic.

Fragile X is the most common known cause of autism.The finding is important because parents whose children have autism or fragile X report problems getting their children to go to sleep and stay asleep.

While traveling to different places, we often try to push ourselves to our physical limits, almost to the point of overtiredness and deprive ourselves from sleep due to which you can experience many symptoms of sleep deprivation including headaches, inability to focus, irritability, decreased concentration.

So, it is always reasonable to give enough rest and relaxation to our body every night while traveling.

If you are a frequent traveler to various places or if you are suffering with abnormal sleep patterns while traveling to different places, here are certain tips which can help you to keep your sleep patterns on right track.

Avoid heavy food or drinks!

Try to prefer light food and if you are more prone to heartburns, avoid spicy or fatty food that can make your heartburn flare and put off your restful sleep during journey. So, try to avoid heavy spicy foods during your journeys. Even, drinking more amounts of liquids can make you to wake up frequently during nights.

Avoid early morning flights!

Early morning flights can deprive you from sleep. So, try to schedule your flight in such a way that you can reach your destination in a time for a full night’s rest. This can help you to get more relaxation for your body and mind.

Sleep-related breathing disorders (SRBD) are very common in children, occurring in up to 30 percent of children. SRBD ranges in severity from primary snoring to OSA.

In adults, SRBD is associated with hypertension and increased risk for cardiovascular disease. These findings highlight the importance of considering the long-term cardiovascular effects of any severity of SRBD in children

The 22nd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies (APSS) finds that all severities of SRBD in children are associated with elevated blood pressure during sleep compared with non-snoring control children.

The study focused on 88 children between seven and 13 years of age, including 68 referred for the assessment of SRBD and 20 non-snoring controls. Routine polysomnography, or an overnight sleep test, was performed, and mean arterial pressure was continuously recorded.

Children were divided into groups according to obstructive apnea/hypopnea index: control children, primary snoring, mild obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and moderate/severe OSA.

According to the results, compared with the non-snoring controls, SRBDs of any severity elevate the blood pressure of children during sleep.

It is important to make sure that your child gets enough sleep and sleeps well. The value of sleep can be measured by your child’s smiling face, happy nature and natural energy. A tired child may have development or behavior problems.