Teenagers and sleep

The other night I did an overnight babysit and the apartment had the heating programmed to be on all night. I found it way to hot to sleep and seemed to spend the entire night adjusting the radiator and opening/closing the window.

I did only get about 2 hours sleep - and it was in two different blocks. I got the children up and took them to school and returned home and straight to bed.
I have not slept that badly for years and when thinking about it I remembered that this was my norm when I was a teenager. In those days I would sleep for about 2 hours one night and then the next night about 5 hours, and kept repeating this two night pattern until I went to the doctor about my sleep.

Seeing how tired I felt the other morning, and how I was incapable of doing anything other than going to bed made me reflect on how this must have affected my studies at school and college. Nowadays if I do an IQ test I'm up around 140, yet my school teachers thought I wasn't coping with the work. Some of this was due my dyslexia (which is fortunately much better understood these days) but I now think that my insomnia severely affected my studies.
When revising for my A levels I would spread all my books around my room, and because my Mum would leave me alone 'to study', I would end up with droopy eyelids and falling asleep. I ended up with average results.

So, what to yo do if you are a teenager, or a parent of a teenager with sleep problems?

Firstly teenagers sleep is naturally different from an adults and they become Night Owls and naturally go to bed later, finding it hard to sleep before 11pm. They need at least 9 hours sleep and some need more. School and college hours mean that they are not getting enough sleep.

In order to help try and establish a good evening routine that means homework is finished earlier in the evening, allowing time to unwind before bed.
Encourage having a shower or bath before bed, to send sleep triggers to the brain.
Have a no screen time guideline for the last hour before bed, this includes ipads, laptops, smart phones etc.
Reduce the amount of caffeine in the diet  remember a lot of soda drinks contain caffeine.
Encourage regular sleeping hours to train the body to sleep but do allow for a small lie-ins at the weekend/holidays for catch up.
Strategic napping can help - as long as it is not for too long nor too close to bedtime.
Make the bedrooms as sleep inducing as possible.
Encourage plenty of exercise - again earlier in the day and at least 3 hours before bedtime.

Discuss sleep with your teenager like an adult. Telling them they need to sleep more and enforcing strict rules may well end in resentment and a lack of co-operation. Give them the facts about sleep and how important it is and what the benefits are. Also point out that getting enough sleep helps with weight control and skin conditions such as acne. Let them come to realise the impotence of sleep themselves. Ask if they want to keep a sleep diary to track the amount that they are getting.

Remember - if you treat sleep and sleep issues with respect, encourage discussion and ask them what they would like to do to improve their sleep, they are far more likely to take it on.

Keep an eye on their sleep patterns and if you suspect that their lack of sleep goes beyond normal teenage patterns then get an appointment with their doctor and discuss the possibility of other sleep problems such as insomnia or sleep apnea.

If you have any concerns and want to discuss them further then please contact me for a free consultation.

How much is your sleep debt?

According to statisticians we are accumulating around 500 hours of sleep debt a year! That's a lot of debt to pay back. In our modern, fast-paced world a lack of sleep is fast becoming a badge of honour. Do you ever brag about how little sleep you need? When working with my clients I often deal with cases of insomnia and other forms of physical sleep deprivation but far more interesting are those who can sleep but chose not to. Experts recommend 8 hours sleep a night but most people in the modern world are only getting between 6 and 7 hours a night. even a debt of an hour a night adds up very quickly.

Research shows time and time again how lack of sleep affects us both mentally and physically. In this 24/7 era of technology that is supposed to help us live life to the full, experiencing it in more ways than previously thought possible and being in constant communication with the entire world is actually causing more stress and strain on our bodies than in previous generations.

Years ago I had a boyfriend who started work later than me and so got about 45 minutes more sleep than me each night. At the weekend he was up and ready to go out, I was the one who wanted to catch up on my sleep as I felt exhausted. The difference in our energy levels was that noticeable.

Before the invention of artificial light only the very rich could afford a large number of candles and therefore to stay up late. For the rest of us nighttime meant going to bed early and rising with the sun in the morning. We got on average around 9 hours sleep a night. This also kept the body in touch with the rhythms of nature and the seasons. Now with electricity and light available all the time, as well as the advent 24 hour television and the internet we can all stay up late in the night.

So how does sleep debt affect us?

Short term affects include irritability, memory loss, blurred vision, poor judgment, susceptibility to infection, drop in glucose metabolism, and a rise in cortisol (the stress hormone) levels. It also affects how we store information and access it so if you are staying up all night studying or working the reduction in memory loss and judgment abilities is going to negate all the effort that you have put in. Studies on school children have shown that those who got an hours more sleep performed better in tests. Far better to have an early night instead!

Long term affects include a rise in obesity due to poor insulin control. This of course leads to other health problems such as diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, strokes etc.

Fortunately sleep debt can be paid back. Try going to bed 30 minutes to an hour earlier every night and see what difference that makes on your energy levels and mental alertness. Take the time to make sleep a priority in your life and you will see the benefits in your health and productivity. If you do have a late night - I don't want to be a party pooper, then make sure that you schedule time for an early night to catch up. A well timed nap will also help your energy levels and mental alertness.

 Life sometimes gets in the way of the best laid plans and there will times when getting enough sleep is difficult, parents with young children or caring for loved ones who are ill come to mind. If you are in these situations then remember that these are short term and come up with some strategies to help you cope - taking naps, getting children into good sleep routines, taking turns with a partner for weekend lie-ins etc, all help with keeping your sleep debt to a minimum.

Sweet dreams!

The second sleep

Do you often wake in the night and find it difficult to go back to sleep straight away?
Maybe it's not because you're a freak or different but because we are genetically programmed to do this!

There has been a lot of interest recently (with articles by the BBC, the Times and The Guardian amongst others) about 'the second sleep' and it seems that the human brain is actually programmed to sleep in two four hour chunks.

Research in the 1990's took volunteers and put them in 14 hours of darkness each day. After a few weeks the volunteers had started to sleep in two 4 hour blocks with a one to two hour period of being awake in the middle. despite being of great interest to sleep scientists, the belief that an eight hour block of sleep being the norm has persisted.

Then 2005, historian Roger Ekirch published a book called At Day's Close: Night in Times Past, where he draws on his research where he found over 500 references to segmented sleep in books, in diaries, court records, medical books and literature. what he found interesting was the way in which the references to this sleep pattern were made - as if it was totally normal and that everyone did it.

It seems that the labourers would come home from the work, have something to eat then go to bed - usually because they were really tired! Then approx 4 hours later they would wake up and do things! It was a time for conversation, for prayer, visiting the neighbours, having sex etc. Then they would go to bed and have a second sleep, and wake at dawn ready for another days work.
A doctor's manual from 16th Century France even advised couples that the best time to conceive was not at the end of a long day's labour but "after the first sleep", when "they have more enjoyment" and "do it better".

Ekirch found that references to the segmented sleep dwindle from the 17th Century onwards and links this to social change, the shift to living in cities and eventually the increase in street and domestic lighting, which helped develop a leaning towards socialising in the evening and pushed sleep into one later block of up to 8 hours.

Though the majority of people have adapted to sleeping in one 8 hour block, sleep researchers now think that this could be the root cause of sleep maintenance insomnia, where sufferers wake during the night. It is helpful to realise that most people do wake in the night but that most do not remember it, whereas an insomnia suffer, who is already stressed about lack of sleep, may become more anxious at waking and take longer to fall back asleep. For these people it the realisation that it is not some abnormality but in fact genetic programming may help them and their anxieties around sleep.

In fact, if we look there is still evidence of this segmented sleep around us. Babies who need to wake in the night for feeding, toddlers who still need an afternoon nap, and in hotter climates - an afternoon siesta during the heat of the day, followed by working later in the cool of the evening. The modern world with 24 hour electricity and an unbroken day work ethic actually is encroaching on our sleep patterns even more.

So maybe for those of us who do wake in the night, we need to be celebrating this fact - that we are more in tune with nature and our bodies, that we can use this period of wakefulness for contemplation, meditation and destress (just like our forefathers used the time for prayer and relaxation). Since I found out about segmented sleep a few months ago, I am more relaxed about waking in the night and call it my 'throwback'. Ironically, since being more relaxed about night time waking, I sleep better!

Please comment below if you are a segmented sleeper or have issues around night time waking, I'd love to know your thoughts.

Sweet dreams!

Sleep deprivation

First of all, let me apologize for an absence of posts lately, I have been busy setting things up for my sleep coaching business, please check out my website, where you have access to a free guided meditation to help you sleep! Things are now back under control and I have more time to write blog posts!

I had an interesting conversation with a friend last night, actually that should be this morning, as it was around 1am, I am, as I have said before a night owl!

He brought up the fact that he wasn't an insomniac however he did not get enough sleep as he was always doing 'one more thing' before bed. He also mentioned the internet as being a big cause of this!

This got me thinking, we have heard a lot about how insomnia can lead to big health problems including weight gain, diabetes, stress, high blood pressure etc, but what does the effect of sleep deprivation have on health? In some ways insomnia and deliberate sleep deprivation are the same thing and a quick search through the internet reveals that yes, they do both have the same effect on your body.
So if you are someone who goes to bed late and therefore does not get enough sleep please read on for three surprising affects that may help you make more of an effort to go to bed on time!

It ages your skin. It seems that the term 'Beauty Sleep' holds true, and this should be enough to get everyone rushing in to bed to catch up on their zzzzzzz's. The first thing you notice is red and puffy eyes as well as grey rings under your eyes, and it can also lead to the development of fine lines. However lack of sleep also has more long term damage. When you don’t get enough sleep, your body releases more of the stress hormone cortisol. In excess amounts, cortisol can break down skin collagen, the protein that keeps skin smooth and elastic.
Sleep loss also causes the body to release too little human growth hormone. When we’re young, human growth hormone promotes growth. As we age, it helps increase muscle mass, thicken skin, and strengthen bones. It is in deep sleep when the growth hormone repairs the tissues in the body, are you getting enough deep sleep?

It makes you forgetful. Want to remain sharp and focused? Try getting plenty of sleep. Researchers determined that brain events called “sharp wave ripples” are responsible for consolidating memory. The ripples also transfer learned information from the hippocampus to the neocortex of the brain, where long-term memories are stored. Sharp wave ripples occur mostly during the deepest levels of sleep.

It impairs your judgment, especially about how much sleep you need! Lack of sleep can affect our interpretation of events. This hurts our ability to make sound judgments because we may not assess situations accurately and act on them wisely.
Sleep-deprived people seem to be especially prone to poor judgment when it comes to assessing what lack of sleep is doing to them. In our increasingly fast-paced world, functioning on less sleep has become a kind of badge of honor. However even if you think you’re doing fine on less sleep, you’re probably wrong. Studies have shown that even if you think your body has adapted to only six hours sleep, tests on mental alertness and performance show that is not the case.

So, if you wear your lack of sleep as a badge of honour, ask yourself is it really worth staying up to watch that tv show? Do you actually need to check that one last thing on the internet?
How about being kind to yourself and going to bed on time, aiming for 7 to 8 hours sleep, so you can wake up bright eyed and bushy tailed - ready to face the day! Check out my previous post about setting up a great bedtime routine to help you make the most of your sleep.

Sweet dreams!