Keep your kids on a sleep schedule this summer (image via reverend barry on Flickr)

Summer vacation is just around the corner and kids everywhere are getting ready to stay up late and sleep in.  There is something about summer vacation that makes it seem as if the rules go out the window and things like bedtimes and eating vegetables should be packed away with school books and backpacks until fall rolls around.  Unfortunately, not every family has the luxury of adjusting their entire schedule to enable a more leisurely lifestyle that also allows everyone to get enough sleep.  Moms and Dads still have to get up in the morning and go to work which means kids have to get up and go to camp or childcare.  Late nights and early mornings don’t mix any better during the summer than they do when school is in session.

According to the National Sleep Foundation, school age children need at least nine hours of sleep each night to be healthy and have the energy they need to be active.  The best way to make sure kids are getting the sleep they need is to stick to a standard schedule of bedtime and wake time.  But during the summer, that isn’t always an easy thing to do.  To help parents prepare for a successful summer full of fun and slumber, here are 4 tips for helping kids on a summer sleep schedule.

1.     Set a Bedtime You Can Stick to that Works with Your Schedule

There is no point in setting a summer bedtime that you won’t be able to follow.  Be realistic about what your family’s summer schedule is really like.  Are you out and about later into the day than during the rest of the year? Are you traveling or having family visit? When do your children need to be up in the morning?  All these questions should feed into setting a summer bedtime that will work for your family.

2.     Make Sleep a Priority

Children need 9-10 hours of sleep and they need to see that sleep is important for them and for the rest of the family.  Make sure each family member has room in the schedule to get the sleep their body needs to be healthy.

3.     Allow for Free Time

In our fast paced world, we are apt to over schedule our lives and the lives of our children.  Let summer be a break from structured, scheduled time and make sure your children have free time to play and explore.  Overscheduled children can become stressed out and too much stress can keep them from getting the sleep they need, even if you schedule it in.

4.     Follow the Same Routine

During the school year, it is likely that your child has a specific routine they follow in order to get ready for bed.  They change into pajamas; brush their teeth, read a book, etc.  Try to keep this routine as similar as possible during the summer to reinforce that muscle memory that tells the body it’s time to go to bed.  This will also make it easier to get back on a regular sleep schedule once summer is over.

Related Articles:

• Children and Sleep (sleepfoundation.org)
• How to Keep Kids on a Sleep Schedule (valleysleepcenter.com)
• Back to School Means Back to Bedtime (valleysleepcenter.com)

How do infants of depressed mothers sleep? (image via sabianmaggy on Flickr)

If you have ever had a newborn baby in your house, you understand why people say, “Never wake a sleeping baby.”  Babies have a way of disrupting the sleep schedule of the adults around them and don’t follow the normal schedule the rest of us have become accustomed to, which means new parents rarely get as much sleep as they need.  Generally, this sleep deprivation is the result of having to live on the baby’s schedule until he or she is old enough or big enough to be able to sleep for more hours in a row.  There is a new study, however, that shows it may not be the baby’s schedule that is causing all this sleeplessness, at least not for mothers who are depressed or dealing with a lot of anxiety.

A new study completed by researchers at Pennsylvania State University and recently published in the journal Child Development sought to figure out why infants of mothers with depression wake up more at night than other infants.   Previous research has shown this to be true, but the cause of the higher frequency of waking has never been clarified.  In order to uncover what was going on, the research team needed to go under the covers and see what was happening once the lights went out.

There were 45 participants in the study, all of whom were mothers who had one baby between the ages of one month and twenty-four months.  Fourteen of the participants were experiencing some symptoms of depression during the study.  The research team used cameras placed throughout the participant’s house to record what was happening during the night in order to look for clues or patterns of behavior that might shed some light on why the babies whose mothers were depressed woke up more often than the other babies.  Common locations for camera placement were where the baby sleeps, the door of the room where the baby slept, and any other room in the house where the parents frequently took the baby during the night.  Each camera recorded 12 hours of activity starting at the baby’s bedtime.  The participants also kept sleep diaries and recorded, among other things, how many times their baby woke up during the night.

Going into the study, the research team didn’t have a strong hypothesis they were looking to prove. They were really searching for some piece of the puzzle that would give them the next avenue of exploration into understanding why these babies wake up more than their peers.  The thinking was that it would either show that these babies woke up more often, which meant their mothers were getting less sleep which can contribute to symptoms of depression, or that because these mothers were depressed they checked on their babies more often which increased the perception of how many times the baby was waking up.

What they found was something unexpected.  The depressed mothers were checking on their baby more often than the other mothers, but not just checking on them.  This group of mothers was actually waking their babies up from a sound sleep so that they could spend time with them.  It wasn’t that the babies were waking up more than their peers; it was that their mothers were waking them up.  There seems to be two motivations for this behavior.  First, depressed mothers seem to worry more about their baby during the night.  Second, depressed mothers seem to be seeking out their baby at night as a source of emotional comfort.  The long range implications of this study aren’t yet known, but the findings provide a solid foundation for helping these mothers and their babies get the sleep they need.

Related Articles:

• 6 Ways Parents of a New Baby Can Combat Sleep Deprivation (valleysleepcenter.com)
• Sleep Soundly Knowing Your Baby is Sleeping Soundly (valleysleepcenter.com)
• Preventing SIDS Requires More Than Putting Them Back To Sleep (valleysleepcenter.com)

What does it feel like to be well rested? (CC image via The Markovs on google images)

There is a lot of information available about what it feels like to be sleep deprived and what happens to us mentally, physically, and emotionally when we don’t get enough sleep.  Sleep debt is rampant in the U.S.

According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), only a third of adults reported getting enough sleep every night for the last month.  This means that many people may not realize they are suffering from sleep deprivation because they don’t actually know anymore what it feels like to get a good night’s sleep.  When you consider the long-term health consequences of not getting enough sleep, the importance of helping people understand the difference between a good night’s sleep and not getting the sleep they need is clear.

So, what does it feel like when you get a good night’s sleep?

Unfortunately, one night of the right amount of sleep isn’t likely to make you feel different enough to reinforce the need to make sleep a priority.  If you are suffering from a significant sleep debt, one night of good sleep is like paying the minimum due on your credit card.  It will keep you from racking up more debt, but it isn’t really going to affect your balance.  This may be one of the reasons so many of us have lost sight of what it feels like to be well-rested.

Let’s pretend that you have had a complete month of good sleep in a row.  How would you feel?

In truth, there isn’t any hard science or a list of signs to look for that tells you that you are getting the sleep you need.  In fact, a research team from Australia that went looking to see if there is any truth to the idea that children today aren’t getting as much sleep as they used to, determined that there isn’t really a good measurement of “enough sleep.”  Their findings, which were published in the journal Pediatrics, show that historically, we never think we are getting enough sleep, even when we were getting more than we are now.  Additionally, the amount of sleep recommended has decreased on par with the decrease in the amount of sleep people are generally getting.  What this means is that 100 years ago, we thought children needed about 30 minutes more sleep than they were getting.  Today, even though we are getting more than an hour less sleep every night, the recommendation is about 30 minutes more than the average.

This is not meant to suggest that the lack of a clear picture of what “enough” sleep looks like somehow implies that we aren’t sleep deprived or that the current recommendations are flawed or incorrect.  It simply means that when it comes to sleep, we don’t have a great measuring stick to help us identify when we are getting enough.  Which brings us back to the original question, what does a good night’s sleep feel like?  While the general consensus seems to be that you will be more alert, more refreshed, and have more energy, this may be a question only you can answer.  To start, pay attention to how you feel on days when you wake up on your own, without external stimulus, since these are the days most likely to follow a good night’s sleep.

Related Articles:

• Can You Pay Off Your Sleep Debt? (valleysleepcenter.com)
• Is There a Connection Between Sleep Deprivation and Obesity? (valleysleepcenter.com)
• Are Your Emotions Haywire? Sleep It Off! (valleysleepcenter.com)

Does how much sleep you get affect your weight? (image via in search for a new country of residence on Flickr)

Research has been telling us for years that not getting enough sleep can have serious life-long consequences that go beyond the everyday problems caused by sleep deprivation.  When you have a sleep deficit, you are more likely to develop cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and even some types of cancer.  Studies have even shown that lack of sleep can be a contributing factor in becoming obese.  All of this has made it pretty clear that not getting enough sleep is very bad for your health in both the short and long term.  But does when you are sleeping matter, too? This is the question a newly released study sought to answer.

The study, which was recently published in the Science of Translational Medicine journal, looked at what happened to people’s metabolism and blood sugar when they experienced a reduction in the amount of sleep they were getting and slept at abnormal times.  The team wanted to see if people who do shift work and are unable to sleep at night are at a higher risk for obesity and diabetes simply because of their sleep schedule.

The study included 21 healthy participants, male and female, whose ages spanned from their 20s to their 60s. Throughout the 6 week experiment, participants lived in dimly lit rooms without windows which kept their bodies from adjusting to day or night.   After developing baseline data based on several nights of 10 hours sleep during normal sleeping hours, the research team swapped their sleep schedule for one that is more common to people who work off hours.  Participants were only allowed to sleep 5.5 hours a day and the times they were allowed to sleep varied, mimicking the schedule many shift workers follow.  After three weeks, the participants were allowed to return to a normal sleep schedule and sleep for the full 10 hours for 9 nights.

The results were startling and may help further explain why there is such a strong relationship between sleep deprivation, obesity, and diabetes.  The research team found that during the time that the participants were not getting enough sleep and were following an erratic sleep schedule, their metabolism slowed down and their blood glucose spiked after they ate.  Extrapolating these results means that not sleeping enough and not sleeping in accordance with your bodies biological clock could add as much as 10 pounds a year all by itself.

Unfortunately, this type of erratic sleep-deprived schedule is no longer truly limited to those who work off hours.  As a culture, we are quick to sacrifice sleep and generally do not consider what kind of consequences we are subjecting our bodies to in both the short and long term.  We value productivity over good health and expect people to be “on,” available, and even working at all hours of the day and night.  Yet, in the same breath, we worry about the rapid increase in the obesity rate and admonish people for drowsy driving.   While the findings of the study are not conclusive enough to accurately depict how similar circumstances translate to the real word, they should serve as another wake up call.  Sleep is not optional and those who seemingly succeed without it should not be our superheroes.  If we as a country and a culture are serious about turning the tide in the obesity epidemic and making drowsy driving a thing of the past, it starts by changing how we look at sleep once and for all.

Related Articles:

• How to Stop Drowsy Driving (valleysleepcenter.com)
• How to Keep Kids on a Sleep Schedule (valleysleepcenter.com)
• The Connection Between Sleep Deprivation and Obesity (valleysleepcenter.com)

Which Sleep Pattern Are You? (Image via the_thirsty_moth on Flickr)

The National Sleep Foundation is one of the most respected authorities on sleep, especially here in the U.S.  For ten years they have been running the annual Sleep in America poll in an effort to help experts in the field and everyday people understand the vital role sleep plays in living a happy and healthy life.  One objective of each annual poll is to collect data about the sleep patterns and habits of everyday people.  Although each year’s poll is centered on a single theme like Technology and Sleep or Women and Sleep, baseline data from a control group is at the core of each poll.  This has provided the NSF with 10 years of solid data on who sleeps when, why we don’t sleep, how much sleep we get, and what kind of sleepers we are.

After analyzing this data, the NSF has identified five different types of sleepers or “sleep personality types” that are common across ages, incomes, genders, etc.  Which are you and are you ok with the one that most resembles your life?

Here are the five sleep personalities the NSF identified.

Healthy, Lively Larks

These are the people that most people wish they were when it comes to sleep.  They:

• Get a good night sleep almost every night
• Never have trouble falling asleep or staying asleep
• Don’t suffer from any sleep debt, don’t experience excessive daytime sleepiness or fatigue
• Consider  themselves to be morning people and are generally in good health

The majority of Larks are married and employed full time.   The people who fit into this group are generally younger as a group than the other personality types.

Sleep Savvy Seniors

This group is made up of the seniors who have figured out how to maintain a healthy relationship with sleep as they moved through adulthood.  They:

• Have an average age of 60
• Get more sleep on any given night than the other groups, averaging 7.3 hours/night
• Have the lowest risk of any group for developing a sleep disorder
• Rarely feel overtired or fatigued

The majority of people in this group are retired women who are no longer working and who take advantage of their flexible schedule to nap during the day.

About half of Americans fall into those first two categories.  This is very telling since the other half of Americans fall into the remaining three categories, which are less positive overall and definitely impacting the health of that half of the population.

Dragging Duos

This group is primarily made up of people who are getting up early, working hard, and never really getting enough sleep.  They:

• Are more likely to have a partner than the other groups
• Are more likely to be employed and working in excess of 40 hours a week
• Are early risers which makes it twice as likely that they will not get as much sleep as they need
• Are experiencing problems in their relationship because of sleep

Almost a third of those in this group are experiencing daytime sleepiness and excessive fatigue as many as three times a week.

Overworked, Overweight, and Over-caffeinated

This group of people routinely identifies themselves as “night owls” and are the least likely to work what most people would consider a normal schedule.  They:

• Work more than any other group and drink more caffeine than any other group
• Don’t get as much sleep as the other groups but tend to take more naps
• Believe they don’t need as much sleep as other people to function optimally and think they are getting at least as much sleep as they need, if not more
• Are very likely experiencing symptoms of insomnia

The majority of the people in this group are male and about half of those in this group qualify as obese.

Sleepless and Missin the Kissin

This group has the highest percentage of people who describe themselves as night owls and know they have some issues with sleep.  They:

• Are likely to believe that they have some kind of sleep problem or disorder
• Don’t feel like they get a good night sleep very often and report feeling tired and fatigued
• Have likely been diagnosed with a medical condition
• Feel that sleep and sleepiness has impacted their relationship

There are more women than men in this group and these people are more likely to use sleep aids than any other group.

If you see more of yourself in one of the less desirable groups than you would like to, take heart.  It is possible to change your sleep personality by making changes to your lifestyle and committing to making sleep the priority it needs to be in order to safeguard your health.

Related Articles:

• 5 Sleep Pattern Clusters: Which One Are You? (valleysleepcenter.com)
• What’s Your Magic Sleep Number? (valleysleepcenter.com)
• Build a Better Sleep Environment (valleysleepcenter.com)

Pain from Fibromyalgia affects the ability to get a good night's sleep (photo credit: fromcolettewithlove on Flickr)

An estimated 1 out of every 50 Americans have to deal with the consistent pain and other problems that come from having Fibromyalgia according to the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine within the National Institutes of Health. The condition affects the musculoskeletal system including joints, muscles, tendons, and soft tissues, causing widespread pain without other origin.  There is no known cause or cure for Fibromyalgia and it can result in many other problems including significant difficulties with sleep.  People who have this condition must cope with the constant pain in order to accomplish even the smallest tasks within their everyday life.

What are the Symptoms?

Fibromyalgia’s primary symptom is mild to severe widespread pain experienced in specific tender points throughout the body.   These specific tender points cause the pain to increase if they are touched and are found in 9-mirrored pairs in these locations on either side of the body:

• The back of the head
• In between the shoulder blades
• Top of the shoulders
• The front sides of the neck
• The upper chest
• Along the outer elbows
• Along the upper hips
• On the sides of the hips
• In the inner knee area

This pain can feel like a constant ache or a sharp, burning, or shooting pain.  The pain does not present the same in each person; it may come and go over the course of a day, start out bad and improve as the day goes on, or persist all day and all night.  One of the main complications of Fibromyalgia is a chronic sleep disturbance, which can exacerbate the pain and make coping more challenging.   This lack of sleep also contributes to chronic daytime sleepiness.

The Pain -Sleep Connection

Although doctors and researchers have not yet been able to clarify the relationship between pain and the inability to sleep, the general consensus is that there is a complex link between the two.  Studies have shown that sleep deprivation can result in fibromyalgia-like symptoms and that improvement in sleep quality and duration can improve symptoms.  This shows that there is a relationship that must be managed carefully to provide the most pain-free experience for those with the condition.

Another link between sleep and fibromyalgia is the frequent use of sleep aids by people who have this condition.   Further research that helps to clarify and quantify the link between Fibromyalgia and sleep may open the door to new treatment options that are more effective than those available today.   According to the National Sleep Foundation, there may also be a link between Fibromyalgia and Restless Leg Syndrome, a neurological-based sleep disorder.  Sleep disordered breathing is also found in people with Fibromyalgia.  Because of the strong link between sleep, pain, and management of the disease and the potential for people to have a sleep disorder in addition to the Fibromyalgia, treatment of the condition should include sleep monitoring and in many cases, sleep testing that is completed at a certified sleep center.

Related Articles:

• Fibromyalgia and Sleep (sleep foundation.org)
• Sleep and Fibromyalgia (valleysleepcenter.com)
• Why Women Have Difficulty Sleeping (valleysleepcenter.com)

New data reveals how to better prevent SIDS (photo credit: basykes on Flickr)

There are few things as tragic as the loss of an infant to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS).  In the last 20 years, we as a country have made great strides in preventing many SIDS deaths simply by changing the way we allow our infants to sleep, on their backs.  The “Back-to-Sleep” campaign, which was conducted by the National Institute of Child Health and Development sought to inform new parents and other caregivers that the safest sleep position for babies up to a year old was on their backs.  A new study recently published in Pediatrics sought to determine how effective that campaign was at changing parents’ behavior to prevent SIDS deaths.

The results of the study, called Risk Factor Changes for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome After Initiation of Back-to-Sleep Campaign, are promising.  The number of SIDS deaths in the U.S. dropped by 50% over the 10 year period following the start of the campaign in 1994.  Using medical records for infants who died of SIDS over a 17-year period within a single county, the research team was able to quantify the success of the campaign at preventing SIDS deaths.  While the drop in deaths per year was significant, researchers did note that even after the campaign, more than 30% of parents and caregivers were not heeding the Back-to-Sleep campaigns advice about sleep position.  Additionally, even with the 50% drop, there are still more than 2,500 SIDS deaths each year in this country.

As a result of the study, medical professionals are urging parents and caregivers to take a more holistic view of SIDS prevention, rather than focusing on a single risk factor.  This is due in part to the increase in participation in other high risk behaviors found during the course of the study.   Even with success of the initial campaign, the study found that 30% of parents continued to put babies down to sleep on their stomachs.  Additionally, the number of babies that died of SIDS while sharing a bed with their parents jumped 10% over the timescale of the study.  There was a decrease in the number of babies who died of SIDS that were exposed to maternal smoking before birth, down from 42% to 39%, but that number still remains high for such a preventable risk factor.

The team also found that only 1% of the infants included in the study did not have any risk factors for SIDS.  The majority of infants had 1 risk factor, 57% of them had more than one.   This points to the need for more education and better prevention since babies born with the right genetic makeup are more susceptible to SIDS.  Taking prevention seriously is the best way to safeguard their health.

According to the National Sleep Foundation, there are 9 primary risk factors for SIDS that if avoided, can decrease the risk of SIDS.  They are:

• Sleeping on their stomach.
• Sleeping on soft bedding like couches and waterbeds.
• Soft bedding for blankets and pillows.
• Overheating
• Having a mother who is under 20
• Having a mother that smokes
• Lack of prenatal care
• Premature birth weight
• Second hand smoke

Related Articles:

• Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and Sleep (sleepfoundation.com)
• Sleep Soundly Knowing Your Baby is Sleeping Soundly (valleysleepcenter.com)
• 6 Ways Parents of a New Baby Can Combat Sleep Deprivation (valleysleepcenter.com)

How sleep deprived are your local police officers? (Image via Toban Black on Flickr)

In the most recent Sleep in America Poll, the National Sleep Foundation took a close look at how sleep impacts the performance and safety of those working in our transportation industry.  The results were somewhat alarming. Airline pilots and train operators are the most sleep deprived with more than 20% of each group reporting that sleepiness has impacted their job performance in the last month.   Transportation workers were the focus of this year’s poll, in part because sleep deprivation in these professions can have very serious consequences, which could in turn affect many other people.  But they aren’t the only professions that are generally suffering from lack of sleep.

Here are the 5 most sleep deprived occupations according to data from the National Health Interview Survey and some of the consequences sleep deprivation can have on job performance.

1.     Home Health Aides

At just under 7 hours per night on average, home health aides win the award for the most sleep deprived occupation.  They can add that to their long running award for being one of the lowest paid professions in the U.S.  Perhaps the reason they aren’t getting enough sleep is because they are up all night worrying about their finances or working a second job to pay their bills.  Considering that they work with the disabled, chronically ill, and those in hospice care, it may also be the stress of caring for someone else when you are barely making enough to take care of yourself that is robbing them of sleep.

2.     Lawyers

Lawyers only lost the most sleep deprived prize by 3 minutes, coming in at exactly 7 hours of sleep on average each night.  Why are lawyers lacking sleep?  Perhaps it is the grueling schedule they keep while working to become partner or the moral quandary posed by representing someone they know is guilty.  It may just be that as a high-power, high-pressure career, lawyers are more likely to sacrifice sleep to get ahead.

3.     Police Officers

It is probably a good thing that police officers average one extra minute of sleep each night than lawyers since they are more likely to be chasing down criminals and need a little extra energy.  Blame their sleep deprivation on erratic schedules and odd shifts that can wreak havoc with the body’s internal clock and biological rhythms.  It is a little unsettling to know that the good guys with the guns are suffering from sleep deprivation.

4.     Physicians and Paramedics

Next on the list are physicians and paramedics who are only minutes behind lawyers and cops in the sleep deprivation game.  Paramedics likely struggle with the same types of issues as police officers, working

odd shifts with an erratic schedule and extremely stressful situations.  The idea that physicians average slightly more than 7 hours of sleep a night may be a misnomer as residents and interns are known to get much less sleep than that on a regular basis.  In fact, the risk to patient care caused by the extraordinary sleep deprivation experienced by doctors in these programs is the driving force to overhaul the way doctors are trained.

5.     Economists, Social Workers, and Computer Programmers

These three professions all tie for a 5^th place finish getting an additional minute of sleep per night than the doctors and EMTs.  While it is interesting to see economists on the list, it is also refreshing to think that they are up at night worrying about the economy just like the rest of us, even if it isn’t proven.  Social workers have a lot to worry about and may have to answer emergency calls in the middle of the night.  Computer programmers, well, there are a variety of reasons that they might not be getting the sleep they need but let’s leave it at technology can be a sleep stealer.

The truth of the matter is, only 5 minutes of sleep separate the occupations on this list and if you compare home health aides to loggers, who get the most sleep, there is only a differential of about 20 minutes.  What does all of this data mean to us? It tells us that the real message here is that the majority of Americans, regardless of profession, are not getting the sleep they need.

Related Articles:

• Health Aides & Lawyers Are Most Sleep Deprived (today.msn.com)
• Want Better Healthcare? Give Doctors a Nap! (valleysleepcenter.com)
• Can You Pay Off Your Sleep Debt? (valleysleepcenter.com)

Wakemate Sleep Device (image via GuySie on Flickr)

Generally, when you hear about gadgets and getting a good night’s sleep at the same time, it is highlighting how gadgets are making it difficult to get the sleep we need.  However, there is another side to the technological advances that have made all these gadgets so critical to our everyday existence.  In some cases, gadgets can actually help you get the sleep you need.  Here are a few gadgets that you can use to help address the different problems keeping you up counting sheep rather than racking up zzz’s.

1.     Wake Up with WakeMate

During the course of each night, you move through several different phases of sleep and within these phases there are times when it is more optimal to wake up.  WakeMate, and other sleep gadgets like it, use technology to gauge where you are in your sleep cycle and then set off an alarm to wake you up the most optimal time during a 20 minute window you designate.  This gadget is a wristband that you wear while you are sleeping that tracks your sleep phase and patterns throughout the night.  Wakemate also uploads your specific sleep data which enables you to look at how well you are sleeping over time.   This gadget costs about $60.00.  For more information, visit their website.

2.     Hire Zeo to be Your Sleep Coach

Zeo uses a headband to provide much of the same functionality as WakeMate but the focus of the Zeo is on improving overall sleep quality and quantity rather than ensuring an optimal wake-up time.  Zeo tracks and stores data about your sleep patterns throughout the night and enables you to upload and analyze your data.  By tracking different factors like exercise, medication, and caffeine that can help or hinder your sleep, Zeo helps you identify patterns of behavior that are impacting how much sleep you get and the quality of that sleep.  The addition of the “sleep coach” function, which uses your data to recommend tips and strategies for improving your overall sleep makes this gadget even more useful.  The basic model Zeo cost about $100.00 and can be purchased from their website.

3.     Let Lark Wake You Up Without a Sound

Lark does the same basic thing as WakeMate, only silently.  This is the perfect gadget for people who have partners with a different schedule as it makes it easier to wake one person up without a blaring alarm waking everyone up.  Lark is a wristband that vibrates to wake you up at the right time rather than waking you up with any kind of sound.  Lark is controlled by an iPhone app, which limits its use to iPhone owners but it also tracks and records sleep data to help you see where you are struggling.  Lark costs around $189 and can be purchased at Apple stores.  For more information, visit the website.

Gadgets can be great, but if you aren’t getting the sleep you need and consistently struggling to fall asleep or stay asleep, talk to your doctor and make sure your sleep problems aren’t the result of a sleep disorder.

Related Articles:

• Alarm Yourself to Wake Up to Sleep Innovations (valleysleepcenter.com)
• 5 Reasons to Take Your Smartphone to Bed with You (valleysleepcenter.com)
• There’s an App for That! The New Sleep App Review (valleysleepcenter.com)

Drowsy driving is blamed for over 1500 traffic fatalities every year. Image via paulswansen on Flickr

Drowsy driving is a problem in America.  Everyone knows we love to drive but, as evidenced by the statistics on drinking and driving and texting and driving, many of us our not taking the responsibility of driving safely as seriously as we should.  This is just as true for estimated 168 million of us that have driven drowsy in the last year according to the National Sleep Foundation (NSF).  Drowsy driving is dangerous and is believed to contribute to more than 1500 fatalities every year.  Next time you get behind the wheel, take a minute to gauge how tired you are before you turn the key.

How Can I Tell if I am Too Tired to Drive?

If you are feeling a little tired and wondering how tired is too tired to drive, start by thinking about how much sleep you got last night.  Sleep loss is one of the primary risks for crashes caused by drowsy drivers according to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA).  If you got at least 8 hours of sleep last night, you are not at an increased risk of getting in a drowsy driving accident.  However, if you slept only 6-7 hours, your risk is doubled and if you slept less than 5 hours, you may be 4 or 5 times more likely to have an accident based on information provided by the NSF.  If you got enough sleep last night, think back over the last few nights to see if you are carrying a big sleep debt before deciding to drive.

Who is at the Greatest Risk for Drowsy Driving

Even if you got a good night’s sleep last night, you may still have a higher risk for drowsy driving accidents than other people depending on when you do the majority of your driving.  Another of the primary risks cited by the NHTSA is driving pattern.  People who drive between midnight and 6 AM, drive for long periods of time without taking a break, drive in the mid-afternoon, and those who drive a lot of miles each year all have a higher risk of getting in a drowsy driving accident than people who do not share those driving patterns.

Another primary risk group is anyone with an untreated sleep disorder, particularly people with sleep apnea and narcolepsy.  Both conditions cause daytime sleepiness that is unrelated to the amount of sleep they get at night.  In many cases, people don’t even realize they have a sleep disorder.  If you find that you are extremely tired while driving but are getting the amount of sleep you need each night, it may be a good idea to talk to your doctor.  Getting to the bottom of unexplained daytime sleepiness will not only make you safer on the road, it may also improve your health and even save your life.

How to Stop Drowsy Driving

The key to stopping drowsy driving is making people understand that it is as dangerous and deadly as driving while intoxicated.  Many people discount driving while they are tired the same way they discount the need to get enough sleep at night.  Both issues are critical to the health and safety of your family.  As with any cultural shift, change happens one driver and one decision at a time.  Stop drowsy driving and you will be helping us all get one step closer to stopping drowsy driving.

Related Articles:

• Do You Know How Sleepy You Are? (valleysleepcenter.com)
• 6 Ways Parents of a New Baby Can Combat Sleep Deprivation (valleysleepcenter.com)
• 4 Sleep Myths Busted (valleysleepcenter.com)