7 Steps To Reduce Insomnia

I was fascinated by the NY Times' two recent articles on sleep. One is about how to get more of it so you'll be more beautiful, featuring spas, sleep products and a barely perceptible nod to useful skills like meditation and relaxation. The companion piece is about makeup to hide the ravages of sleeplessness. Really?

Sleep deprivation causes irritability, relationship issues, depression, anxiety, weight gain, medical problems, cognitive deficits, impaired work performance, car crashes and a host of other ills beyond the toll it takes on physical beauty. Makeup is not going to solve these problems.

Clouding the issue by suggesting a cosmetic fix, spa products or pills, ignores the fact that sleep problems are often easily remedied without medication or costly solutions.

Since it's summer, why not send yourself to sleep camp? In sleep camp you have daily activities, just like volleyball and swimming in summer camp. If you despised summer camp you can think of it more like soccer or tennis camp where you're trying to improve a skill set and you know it's going to take dedication, practice, tweaking and repetition.

Here's how sleep camp works: 

1. Start a sleep journal. 

Read more here...

Sleep Happiness not Apneas

Leave it to Americans to try to find happiness in a pill. This is a pet peeve I have as both a coach and psychotherapist. Last year Americans filled 49 million prescriptions for sleeping pills. Check out this morning’s Jon Mooallem interview on NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16400411

You can also see this morning’s NY Times Magazine cover story for more info on sleep and the mattress industry’s attempt to capitalize on our desire for better sleep

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/18/magazine/18sleep-t.html?th&emc=th

Did you know some researchers believe that the use of sleeping pills merely causes us to have a kind of amnesia for the night? Thus, we believe we had a better night’s sleep because we can’t recall tossing and turning.

Did you know that, historically, people didn’t sleep for eight hours straight? Getting up for an hour or so during the night to feed animals, have a chat or have sex was not unusual. In other words, our expectations for sleep might be a bit out of line. We may not have been made to sleep for eight consecutive hours.

As an ofttimes cognitive behaviorist, I can tell you that I too have observed that people sleep better as soon as they stop worrying about sleeping better. Cutting down on caffeine, vigorous exercise before bed (no, that doesn’t mean sex) and spicy food late in the day, and keeping a regular sleep-wake schedule and relaxing before bed (yes, that could mean sex) are also quite helpful. Warm milk also apparently does have some physiological effect that aids sleep.

As with so many things in life, a pill may not be the best answer. Apparently, being satisfied with one’s sleep leads to greater sleep happiness, not to be confused with sleep apneas.