It is our body’s natural period of rest. We share the need with all mammals and birds and many fish, reptiles and amphibians. Restful sleep is essential for survival.

While undergoing this unconsciousness our bodies and brains undergo two distinct phases. The famous REM or rapid eye movement is the relatively less common phase; the more common is known as non-REM.

Alpha waves seen on an EEG of the brain indicate relaxation. With eyes closed and our mind free of thoughts it is the first stage we undergo before going under. As drowsiness commences the alpha waves are replaced with delta waves, this stage indicates we have fallen asleep and entered the non-REM or slow wave stage.

Slow wave is associated with muscle rehabilitation and growth through the release of anabolic hormones and cytokines. The cells of the body are repaired and immune defenses maintained. It helps us recover from the active rigors of the day. Pregnant women and fast growing children and adolescents experience longer periods of slow-wave than those off us who no are not experiencing periods of growth.

The non-REM phase can be divided into three phases.

Stage 1 is the beginning. If you are woken at this stage it feels like you haven’t been unaware at all. You will often experience hypnic jerks which are muscular twitches, typical before the next stage.

Stage 2 is the next stage. It is still easy to be awoken from this stage though you are unconscious, this is the predecessor of stage 3.

Stage 3 or slow wave is what we call deep sleep. If you are woken during this stage then drowsiness and grogginess can be expected. This is also the stage where it is most difficult to wake someone. You will experience dreams at this stage though not nearly as memorable or vivid as those experienced during REM. Nightmares, night terrors and walking is most common during this phase.

After 60-90 minutes of non-REM type, you will enter the first period of REM. This is characterized by rapid eye movement, muscle paralysis and brain waves similar to the waking state. This first period will be short, around 5 minutes, but the cycle will continue through the night and periods of REM will get longer. The time spent should consist of around 20% of the total.

Dreaming and physiological arousal will be experienced while in the REM phase. Any dreams remembered the next morning will usually have occurred during this stage. It is theorized that the purpose of all this brain activity is to consolidate memories made during the day.

A simplified explanation for the purpose of A good nights rest is that the brain needs the REM phase to analysis and sort what happened during the day and the body needs non-REM rest to repair the damage that happened during that same day. If you’re not getting the slumber your brain and body needs every night than you may not be reaching your full potential. If you think you’re having problems or possibly a disorder than contact a health professional. For more information consult the American Academy of Sleep Medicine.

Sleep apnea is a condition that prevents the sleeper from breathing properly which in turn wakens the sleeper, and can become a bad enough condition that it can lead to heart disease and many other serious ailments. It can even become life threatening if allowed to reach critical stages. There are various sleep apnea remedies available depending your situation. Consult with your doctor before embarking on any treatment.

It is generally accepted that there are two distinct types of sleep apnea. Central apnea is caused by a lack of body messages to the brain to stimulate regular breathing while asleep. Additionally, there is Obstructive Sleep Apnea that is characterized as having a physical reason for breath blockage during sleep. This would, of course, happen despite the concentrated exertion of the sleeper to breathe.

Regardless of which type of sleep apnea you have, listed are some of the following methods that may work. Since this a condition that can be potentially life threatening, do not start any treatment without the advise from your doctor.

Because your blockage may be caused by excess tissue in your mouth and palate attributable to being obese, you may try to lose weight. This can only help your general well being.

Smoking and drinking alcohol may also prevent you from controlling the soft tissues in your throat, thus you might try to eliminate those habits.

If you suffer from apnea only when sleeping on your back, a tennis ball sewn into the back of your pajamas may prevent that and encourage you to sleep on your side. This is an old school remedy.

Some people find that it helps to raise the bed a few inches. Sleep apnea pillows (wedge pillows) are very popular and have been know to lessen the problem.

Sleeping pills or over-the-counter sleep aids been known to cause relaxation of the throat and help with sleep apnea.

Your doctor may suggest a sleep mask to be worn in conjunction with an air-producing device called a C-PAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure) machine or a BiPAP (Bi-level Positive Airway Pressure) machine that actually allows you to breathe out without the continuous air pressure that a C-PAP produces. Either one of these machines will keep the passageway unobstructed via air pressure to enable you to breathe properly and no longer have to struggle for breath.

Some people swear by oral prosthetics that keep the airway open, and others swear by strange operations entailing scarring of their palate, insertion of polyester substances into the palate, or even having radio frequencies introduced into their palates.

There is also surgery available for some, which entails removing the uvula, tonsils or the adenoids in an effort to clear or widen the airway.

Finally, a more dramatic solution for sleep apnea is Maxillomandibular Osteotomy or Advancement (MMO or MMA), procedures which entail detachment of both the upper and lower jaw, adjusting their placement and finally using pins and plates to solidify the new placement.

Great care needs to be taken when using sleep apnea remedies. Discuss any remedy with your doctor to understand the ramifications of any treatment.

Are you a new Parent who is wondering if they will every get a full nights sleep again?

Good baby sleep habits are very important to get in place early on in baby’s life.? It sounds strange to say something like that about a tiny baby, but remember they are tiny humans - and like? yourself they are creatures of habit.? Breaks in those habits once set, can make them feel very insecure, and a result of that is that you will feel very tired.

If you speak to 10 people about your the problems with your baby’s sleep habits, you will no doubt be advised of 10 different surefire ways that will enable your baby and you to get a good nights sleep.? The snag with this is that you cannot guarantee that any of these solutions will work for your own baby.? By all means give them a try but do not expect a miracle cure the first time you try something out.

Its important to remember that are not alone with your baby’s sleeping issues, even though it probably feels that way in the middle of the night, when you are trying to calm a screaming baby.? A great number of parents feel desperate to solve their baby’s sleep issues but often feel terribly helpless and alone, with no idea of whatsoever? to do about it.

Remember - plenty of other parents have the same the same problems with the baby sleep schedule.? Speak to 9 out of 10 new parents and they will all have some sort of horror story to tell you.? So you are definitely not the first, or the last parents that this is happening to.

There appears to be a link between sleep and weight control, with some studies indicating that sleep disruption can increase weight gain and others that diet affects sleep. Victor Uebele and colleagues, at Merck Research Laboratories, West Point, have now provided further evidence to support this association by showing that T-type calcium channels regulate body weight maintenance and sleep in mice. These data suggest that sleep and circadian treatment approaches may be of benefit in the fight against obesity.

Previous studies have shown that mice lacking the CaV3.1 T-type calcium channel have disrupted sleep/wake activity. In this study, the researchers found that these mice were resistant to weight gain when fed a high-fat diet. Consistent with these data, when normal-weight rodents were administered a drug that specifically antagonized T-type calcium channels during their inactive phase they showed increased sleep and were protected from weight gain due to a high-fat diet. Further, when the same drug was given to obese rodents it reduced body weight and fat mass. The authors conclude that the benefits of the drug are likely to be a result of better alignment of feeding patterns and the circadian rhythm, and that targeting T-type calcium channels might provide a new avenue of research for those developing drugs to treat obesity.

TITLE: Antagonism of T-type calcium channels inhibits high-fat diet-induced weight gain in mice

AUTHOR CONTACT:
Victor N. Uebele
Merck Research Laboratories, West Point, Pennsylvania, USA.

View the PDF of this article at: https://www.the-jci.org/article.php?id=36954

Source:
Karen Honey

Journal of Clinical Investigation

Have you ever wondered what are the effects of lack of sleep. Lack of sleep is dangerous, and if you have constant sleep deprivation you need to take note of these warnings. In the following paragraphs we will discuss some of the reasons that sleep deprivation can be harmful to your health.

What is so important that you aren’t getting enough sleep? That is the first question to ask. Most insomnia is caused by worry. People can’t get to sleep because they are worried about how they are going to pay the bills, getting their tax form completed on time, or their relationships. Health issues can also cause worry, stress and anxiety.

All this worry causes tension which makes it very hard to relax. The brain stays active and this makes it much more difficult to get to sleep. You may find yourself waking up many times during the night and then being unable to fall asleep again very easily. Many people can’t get to sleep because they are sensitive to outside noises such as traffic, or light.

Insomnia is waking up multiple times during the night which prevents your body from entering into the deeper stages of sleep and getting the rest it needs. One common reason for this is sleep apnea which is caused by an obstruction in the airways during sleep. Breathing can stop for up to a minute which causes you to wake up and start breathing again.

There are many other physical causes as well as emotional that can stop you getting the quality of sleep you need. It can often be because of some stress in your life that you haven’t fully dealt with.

The dangers that the effects of lack of sleep can lead to come in many forms. A lack of sleep causes problems with cognition making it more difficult to think. This can lead to embarrassment if you are in a work meeting or attending an important lecture. It can also make driving more dangerous as your reactions may be impaired if you are feeling drowsy from lack of sleep.

Sleep helps to regulate your emotions and a lack of it can make you feel very edgy and much more sensitive. If you aren’t getting enough sleep every emotion is intensified. You may have a much lower threshold for getting angry, and you may find yourself feeling down very easily.

Another one of the effects of lack of sleep is high blood pressure which if not treated can lead to strokes or heart attacks. During sleep your body is allowed to completely relax and a lack of it can result in aches and pains such as back ache or neck pain.

Lack of sleep can be aging, as cell repair takes place during the deeper stages of sleep, Your immunity may also be affected resulting in a lower resistance to colds and viruses.

If you suffer from anxiety or nervous tension you may find it hard to unwind at bedtime, which can cause insomnia. One simple but very effective technique is to loosen your clothing and lay down on the bed with your head resting on a pillow. Breathe in deeply and then exhale slowly several times. Then starting with your left foot, tense the muscles and hold for about 8 seconds.

Let the muscles completely relax while breathing in deeply and then exhaling slowly. Repeat for each group of muscles in the body up to the neck and head. Remember to continue the deep breathing as you tense and relax the muscle groups. You may well find that you have dropped off to sleep before finishing the exercise! This may also help to lower your blood pressure.

Nowadays, many people are having sleep problems night after night. This is especially true for those who are living in hectic city lifestyles. Most of them who are having the problems of sleeping are caused by stress and anxiety, such as some of them may worrying to be awake for the important meeting tomorrow, some of them want to look his or her best in their job interview early tomorrow morning and so on when lying on the bed. Are you one of them who are in living in stress and having some kind of sleeping problems? Therefore, you have to find some ways to cure it in order for you to feel good and normal, and to live your life having a good night sleep every night.

First, you have to identify the causes of sleep problem and believe that you are possible to improve your sleep quality and able to cure it effectively and permanently. Some of the common sleep problems that faced by many adults nowadays are they complaining about lack of sleep, do not feel refreshed after a night sleep and so on. All of those problems of sleeping can be concluded as bad quality of sleep.

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Many peoples thought sleeping more is good and make you feel refresh after wake up. However, sleeping more is not necessarily good for you because it depends to your sleeps quality and everyone has a different optimum time of sleep. 7 to 8 hours of every night sleeping time are recommended for adults. Better not to sleep more than 10 hours every night because over-sleep has been proven to cause sicknesses and reduce your life-span.

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If you want to sleep fewer hours and feel refreshed the next day, then you have to remember that the quality sleep is the key element of it. You can restore your body energy in your mind and body, improve your memories and rejuvenate your bodily functions by having a good quality sleep.

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Do you feel groggy after wake up in the morning? If you have those groggy feeling, then you are suffering from some kind of sleeping problems. Tired and tense muscles are a common symptoms that suffered by those peoples who have insomnia.

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Stress is one of the common causes of nowadays adults sleep problems. You may feel frustrated to find that even you are completely exhausted but you are still unable to drift into sleep and instead you lie awake on the bed. Sometimes, you may easily regain conscious or awake a few times at midnight from sleep because your sleep is light and broken.

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Most of the insomnia sufferers complained that they cannot relax mentally and physically because of stress. When come to the bedtime, they have a lot of thoughts come to their mind all of a sudden.

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You have a good chance to regain your normal sleep cycle if you are have a sleep problem that are not caused by a serious physical and psychological problems. You can take control of your problems of sleeping and become a normal sleeper by using the powerful sleep techniques, such as listening to brain wave entrainment audio that can fine tune your brain wave to lower frequencies in alpha and theta stages, which it can aid sleep.

I want to show you how to have a snore free night. There are a lot of people out there that actually sound like a chainsaw as they sleep. It is unfortunate that in this day and age people still suffer from the problem with snoring. Plus it appears that the problem is growing in number as people really don’t know what they can do about it. When it comes to a subject like weight loss everyone has an opinion about what needs to be done. But when it comes to the topic of snoring, no one really knows what they should be doing. This is one going to show you how to have a snore free night.

The first thing you have to understand that those mornings that is mediated by the position of your jaw. When you fall asleep your jaw tensed to fall open. This actually puts a lot of pressure on your throat and causes it to constrict. In physics, air has to travel a much faster rate in order to get through a much smaller opening. It is this faster speed that causes a much more violent vibration, which we know as snoring.

So if you want to have a snore free night, you’re going to need to take advantage of the snoring headband. It is a really simple device that helps to support your jaw as you sleep. Since your job will be held up your throat will remain in an expanded state and you won’t snore. The great thing about this device is that it takes about 5 seconds to apply.

Learn more about this Anti-Snoring Device

I want to talk to you about snoring and how you can cure it fast. There are a lot of people out there that don’t realize how easy it can be to fix this problem. There doesn’t seem to be much conventional wisdom when it comes to this subject and I believe this is the main reason that people don’t actually attempt to fix the problem. It amazes me that some will go their entire life’s snoring and never really seek a solution to this problem. I bet if more people knew how easy it could be, they’d do it. This is one going to talk to you about snoring and how you can cure it fast.

I think it is important to first goal for why you have this problem. Typically it has to do with your jaw and the muscles that support it. As you know, your muscles will go loose as you sleep. This actually causes your mouth fall open and put pressure on your throat. It is this pressure on the throat that causes a much more violent vibration. This is basically how snoring breaks down to a physics level. Basically all you have to do is close your mouth to fix this problem.

So when it comes to snoring and how you cure it fast, all you have to do is get a device that holds your mouth closed as you sleep. It’s a very simple device known as a snoring chin strap. The great thing about it is that it only takes about 5 seconds to put on and it works the very first night.

Many people take for granted sleeping because they feel that sleeping is just a time to rest and dream. But there is more to sleeping that you should know. Getting enough sleep will help you achieve a healthy skin and body.

What is it about sleeping that makes one youthful? It is during your sleep that the Human Growth Hormone (HGH) is generated. It is believed that the HGH is the key in keeping one’s mind and body young to be able to keep up with the stresses of everyday life. The sad thing about growing old is that the capacity of the body to create new cells and in its ability to repair cells slows down.

There are various ways to create HGH for the body. There are pills that you can take in daily. There are also sprays that you can use by spraying the substance under your tongue. The most effective however is the injection wherein the HGH is directly injected to the bloodstream. However, it has side effects, when you decide to stop using injection. The tendency of your body to produce HGH is not as productive anymore before you started using injection. These artificial supplements work by stimulating the pituitary gland, which produces more HGH.

Therefore, it is still advisable to produce HGH naturally. This is still the safest way for your body to produce HGH. Research shows that it is during the latter stages of your sleep at night that your pituitary glands produce more HGH. So do not take for granted your sleeping habits. The longer you sleep at night the better it is for you, the more that you feel that you are full of energy, alert and very youthful.

So on your next sleep at night, do not feel guilty if you sleep longer than usual because you are helping your body to produce HGH and this is the way to a younger you.

For those who have sleep apnea, a sleep apnea CPAP machine is one solution that will help you feel more at ease about breathing while sleeping. Because sleep apnea can be so severe that a person may die from this disorder, a CPAP machine can give the peace of mind needed to sleep. The main purpose of this machine is to increase the air pressure in your throat to keep your airway from failing.

When sleep apnea is diagnosed by a doctor, they normally use the CPAP machine to treat those who have moderate as well as severe sleep apnea. There are three types of sleep apnea.

Central Sleep Apnea - This is the type that is caused by a problem with the brain. The way it signals the muscles responsible for keeping us breathing is compromised. This type is usually associated with heart failure, strokes, brain infections and brain tumors.

Obstructive Sleep Apnea - This type is caused by the airflow to the throat becoming blocked while you are sleeping. It can also be caused by narrowed airways or being severely overweight can be another reason for this type of sleep apnea.

Mixed Sleep Apnea - This occurs as a combination of the two mentioned above. It is normally recognized by very loud snoring. A restless sleep as well as having difficulty breathing is another clue. The sufferer may wake feeling exhausted and may have a headache. This type may be improved by the way you sleep and the CPAP machine has had great results with this as well.

A CPAP machine usually is made with either a mask that goes over the mouth and the nose or a mask that only covers the nose. The NCPAP or nose only type is the most common. The machines may also have prongs that fit over the nose. The CPAP machine has had very good results decreasing the sleepiness sufferers of sleep apnea were experiencing. Those with severe as well as moderate sleep apnea have lowered their blood pressure by using the NCPAP machine.

People who use the CPAP that suffer from coronary artery disease have fewer heart problems - the main one being heart failure. One of the main things you must remember when using a CPAP is to have regular appointment with your doctor. Often they may need to do additional sleep studies to make sure this is the correct treatment and that it is working satisfactorily. Often the CPAP machine will have to be adjusted.

Those who have experienced any side effects from using the CPAP have mostly been moderate. Sometimes air will leak around the mask. This is only because it does not fit properly and once it is adjusted, this will stop. Some people have reported nightmares and more dreams than normal during the beginning of using the machine. This typically goes away. A dry nose, sore throat or a nose bleed can often be relieved by running a humidifier when you are sleeping and using the CPAP. There are other side effects such as headaches but seeing your doctor and advising him of these problems is the best way to take care of them.

The benefits of the sleep apnea CPAP seem to far outweigh the problems when you think about the alternative which could ultimately be a heart attack, stroke or even death.