Snoring can be an annoyance to those who have to sleep next to the snorer. It can also have serious effects on the snorer who does not have to listen to his/her own snoring. A condition called sleep apnea may be at the bottom of a lot of people’s snoring. Sleep apnea is a disruption of sleep when someone misses taking one or more breaths. This condition can cause several different illnesses. High blood pressure and cardiovascular accidents (aka strokes) are two of the more serious diseases caused by sleep apnea. It can also cause heart failure in snorers so it is important to treat snoring to prevent these more serious consequences.

Another problem, sleep apnea, causes is the frequent waking of the snorer. This prevents a snorer from getting a restful night’s sleep and they are not always aware of the fact that they have been awakened during the night. The next day they are tired and feel sleep-deprived. Some snorers even get into the habit of preventing themselves from entering into a deep sleep stage such as REM (Rapid Eye Movement) Sleep because they are aware that they have trouble breathing during sleep. This condition can be caused by the muscles of the throat and the tongue. When these muscles become too relaxed during deep sleep it results in snoring and an obstruction of the airways. The snorer prevents this by remaining in lighter sleep stages. It is not in the snorer’s best interest to prevent deep sleep stages. The REM stage of sleep is believed to be the stage that aids in retaining memory. For the reasons listed above, it is important for chronic snorers to cure their snoring.

How does one cure snoring? There have been several answers to this question with varying ranges of success. The concern for some people is medication; they may or may not be in favor of taking medication for snoring and would prefer a natural cure for snoring that does not require medication. For these people there is help. Exercises have been discovered that can help cure snoring. These exercises can be found in the e-book, Snore-No-More Cure, in which you will learn how to do exercises that will relieve your snoring. These exercises will eliminate the need for things such as nose clips. These exercises may even prevent the need for surgery. It’s worth a try and would be an incredible money-saver.

Research led by a leading expert on the positive benefits of napping at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine suggests that Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep enhances creative problem-solving. The findings may have important implications for how sleep, specifically REM sleep, fosters the formation of associative networks in the brain.

The study by Sara Mednick, PhD, assistant professor of psychiatry at UC San Diego and the VA San Diego Healthcare System, and first author Denise Cai, graduate student in the UC San Diego Department of Psychology, shows that REM directly enhances creative processing more than any other sleep or wake state. Their findings were published in the June 8th online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

“We found that - for creative problems that you’ve already been working on - the passage of time is enough to find solutions,” said Mednick. “However, for new problems, only REM sleep enhances creativity.”

Mednick added that it appears REM sleep helps achieve such solutions by stimulating associative networks, allowing the brain to make new and useful associations between unrelated ideas. Importantly, the study showed that these improvements are not due to selective memory enhancements.

A critical issue in sleep and cognition is whether improvements in behavioral performance are the result of sleep-specific enhancement or simply reduction of interference - since experiences while awake have been shown to interfere with memory consolidation. The researchers controlled for such interference effects by comparing sleep periods to quiet rest periods without any verbal input.

While evidence for the role of sleep in creative problem-solving has been looked at by prior research, underlying mechanisms such as different stages of sleep had not been explored. Using a creativity task called a Remote Associates Test (RAT), study participants were shown multiple groups of three words (for example: cookie, heart, sixteen) and asked to find a fourth word that can be associated to all three words (sweet, in this instance). Participants were tested in the morning, and again in the afternoon, after either a nap with REM sleep, one without REM or a quiet rest period. The researchers manipulated various conditions of prior exposure to elements of the creative problem, and controlled for memory.

“Participants grouped by REM sleep, non-REM sleep and quiet rest were indistinguishable on measures of memory,” said Cai. “Although the quiet rest and non-REM sleep groups received the same prior exposure to the task, they displayed no improvement on the RAT test. Strikingly, however, the REM sleep group improved by almost 40 percent over their morning performances.”

The authors hypothesize that the formation of associative networks from previously unassociated information in the brain, leading to creative problem-solving, is facilitated by changes to neurotransmitter systems during REM sleep.

Additional contributors to the study include Sarnoff A. Mednick, University of Southern California, Department of Psychology; Elizabeth M. Harrison, UCSD Department of Psychology; and Jennifer Kanady, UCSD Department of Psychiatry and Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System, Research Service. Funding was provided by the National Institutes of Health.

Source:
Debra Kain

University of California - San Diego

Various sleep disorders exist and vary in degree and their nature. These include dyssomnias / insomnia, hypersomnia / sleeping excessively, and parasomnias (subject’s sleep pattern is abnormal).

Sleep Disorders described: There are two distinct states of sleep. 1. Rapid eye movement (REM) and 2. Non-REM sleep. In most cases dreaming occurs in the REM state. Sleep is a cyclic occurrence compiled out of 4-5 REM cycles during night which amount to approximately 25% of the total night’s sleep.

Sleep Disorder Treatment often includes 1. modification of behavior targeting sleep hygiene and completely avoiding sleep deprivation (psychological programming) and 2. the avoidance of the supine positioning while sleeping and 3. avoidance of all and any sedative medications (sleeping pills)

Many have turned to alternative sleep disorder treatments that include 100% natural ingredients and do not require a prescription. After numerous tests, it is believed that the development of these natural sleep disorder treatments might be the solution to the majority of the consumers as it provides a quick and easy fix for their problem.

The sleeping pills that we have grown accustomed to, have limited uses. For example, it may help for an overnight airplane flight, a crisis and it might even prevent an acute sleeping problem from turning into chronic insomnia but as both the doctors and the consumer have come to learn, sleeping pills have more risks than benefits. Presently, insomnia patients are not given sleeping pills but rather the natural alternative as explained above. When using sleeping pills in the long-run, users might experience generalized anxiety disorder or even a chronic physical illness stimulated by anxiety.