Sleep Problems

Insomnia, if it is chronic rather than transient can influence, mood, work performance, relationships, and generally destroy quality of life. It is a major cause of absenteeism from work, reduced productivity, and increased risk of accidents at work, and on the road. Millions of people throughout the world suffer from insomnia, mostly it is stress related, reduce the stress and sleep will follow.
Elderly people may have difficulty initiating sleep, and may stay awake for many hours. Young mothers may be sleep deprived, but not necessarily suffer from insomnia, all they need is the opportunity to sleep. Shift workers may suffer from sleeping problems as a result of the disruption to their circadian rhythms, trying to sleep during the day may result in shortened sleep time. Hormones play havoc with sleep patterns, whether it be as a result of pregnancy or menopause, both may suffer from insomnia.

Taking prescription drugs for sleep may temporarily induce sleep, however the quality of sleep is poor, and taking drugs longterm may cause addiction problems. Correcting nutritional deficiencies may assist sleep, introducing a sleeping regime which is strictly adhered to will go a long way to help solve insomnia. Regular bedtimes, regular rising times, no heavy meals at night, no caffeine drinks after lunch time, regular exercise, and a gradual winding down at the end of the day with relaxing music, having the temperature of the bedroom set at a comfortable level, and under no circumstances using the bedroom as an office.

Homeopathic Sleep Formula 90 Tablets 300 mg. Tired of restless nights? Get a peaceful night’s sleep naturally with the formula that really works.Homeopathy is a 200-year-old form of natural medicine widely practiced in the United States Europe and Asia. It’s based on the scientific principle of like cures like – just like a vaccination. For example when you suffer from allergies a specific homeopathic formula targets the allergic response. This builds up your body’s natural immune system and returns it to a healthy state.Formula contains less than 1% Magnesium Stearate and 99% medicated Dextrose impregnated with: Avena sativa Chamomilla vul. Humulus lupulus Passiflora incar. Coffea cruda and Ignatia amara.Botanic Choice homeopathic formulas are made from all-natural ingredients that help your body heal itself. Each remedy is safe and effective. Product components are officially monographed in the Homeopathic Pharmacopoeia of the United States.

If you are taking any of these drugs, you are destroying many vitamins, which may exacerbate any sleeping problems from which you may be suffering.

Antibiotics – Vitamin A, B-12, C, E, K, Biotin, Calcium, Iron, Magnesium, Potassium, also both good and bad bowel bacteria are destroyed when taking antibiotics, so it is vital to replace the good bacteria with probiotics.

* Chelators – Copper, Iron, Magnesium, Zinc

* Anticonvulsants – Vitamin B-2, B-12, C, F, K, Folic Acid, Calcium, Magnesium

* Antidiabetics (Oral) – Vitamin B-2, B-12, C, D, Folic Acid

* Antihistamines – Vitamin C

* Aspirin – Calcium, Folic Acid, Iron, Potassium, C, B Complex

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If you are awakened in the middle of the night by painful cramps, and no matter what you try they stay until they decide it’s time to go. A simple stretching of the leg can trigger a cramp, or inadequate oxygenation, exposure to rapid fluctuations in temperature, dehydration, low blood salt ,which can easily occur after strenuous exercise, or low blood calcium. Muscle cramps may occur in pregnancy, kidney disease, thyroid disease, low potassium, hypokalemia, or low calcium levels, hypocalcemia.

Whatever may be the cause of your cramp you could do what this guy does, he puts a bar of soap, actually 2 bars, between his sheets and he claims that prevents leg cramps. Exactly how this works, other than by suggestion, is rather baffling to say the least. Following is his article:
Sleeping With Soap Between The Sheets

I wake some nights with such terrible cramps in the balls of my feet that it takes me up to an hour of massage before I can get back to bed. I’ve found that wearing socks to bed in the winter helps sometimes, but we’re suffering 40 degree (over 100) heat here at the moment and I’m sweating enough.

I read an urban legend tonight that may just do the trick, and I’ve promptly placed not one, but two, bars of soap between my sheets to ward off night cramps. I’ve tried taking a quinine tablet before bed, and it works, and lucky for me I have a friend has gets prescribed quinine.

Many people are plagued by noctural leg cramps, those involuntary and agonizing muscle contractions that strike in the depths of the night, waking sleepers with jolts of pain that leave them awash in waves of suffering until the kinks finally relax.

While many possible causes have been posited for these contractions, those afflicted by them are far more concerned with getting rid of these debilitating cramps than they are with understanding their origin. Over the years, many preventions have been suggested, including:

* Stretching one’s calf muscles prior to going to bed.
* Swearing off caffeine in the evening.
* Increasing one’s intake of potassium, magnesium, calcium or Vitamin E.
* Sleeping on one’s back with toes pointed towards the ceiling.
* Taking quinine (now available only by prescription) or drinking tonic water (which contains small amounts of quinine).
* Increasing one’s intake of water during the day.

While all of the above have been said to avert the problem in at least some cases, one further suppression trick appears to work, at least according to anecdotal information, for almost everyone so bedeviled: sleeping with a bar of soap in the bed. No one has yet produced a plausible explanation as to why snoozing with one’s Ivory might stave off those devastating nocturnal leg cramps, yet the reports of its doing so are numerous.

Slipping a bar of soap into the bed as a leg cramp prevention has been advanced by a number of authorities, both medical and otherwise. Ann Landers mentioned the soap cure in her column on a number of occasions, with each airing prompting a load of letters from readers thanking her for this information because it worked wonders for them. “They were thrilled and grateful to be liberated from those leg cramps,” said Ms. Landers.

As to how this works — or even if it does — we’re still in the dark. Perhaps soap releases something into the air that is beneficial to those predisposed to this condition, with the bedsheets working to contain the helpful emissions to the area where they are needed. Or perhaps this is a case of believing making it so — the soap itself has no effect, but the sufferer’s faith in the procedure serves to effect the miracle.

Yet skepticism aside, for those subject to noctural leg cramps, this bit of folk wisdom is clearly worth a try, in that the only potential downside is their having to share their beds with slivers of soap. As to what sort of product and where to place it in the bed, although some who pass along this bit of housewifely lore indicate specifics such as the soap’s having to be unwrapped or not be a specific brand, those who swear by the procedure have had success whether they used large bars or the small ones commonly found in hotel rooms, whether the cakes of soap were wrapped or unwrapped, and whether the afflicted leg was rested on top of the soap or not. As for which brand is best, they all seem to work about the same.

Regarding what to do about an existing leg cramp, folk wisdom once again offers a variety of potential answers:

* Ingest a teaspoon of yellow mustard.
* Drink a glass of water that has a quarter of a teaspoon of baking soda mixed into it.
* Pour salt into your hand and lick it.
* Pinch the skin between the nose and the upper lip.

Posted to Newsworthy on January 15, 2007 11:56 PM

Behavioral and Brain Functions 2006, 2:15doi:10.1186/1744-9081-2-15
© 2006 Srinivasan et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

Increased oxidative stress and mitochondrial dysfunction have been identified as common pathophysiological phenomena associated with neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD), Parkinson’s disease (PD) and Huntington’s disease (HD). As the age-related decline in the production of melatonin may contribute to increased levels of oxidative stress in the elderly, the role of this neuroprotective agent is attracting increasing attention. Melatonin has multiple actions as a regulator of antioxidant and prooxidant enzymes, radical scavenger and antagonist of mitochondrial radical formation.

Oxidative damage has been suggested to be the primary cause of aging and age-associated neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s disease (AD), Parkinson’s disease (PD), and Huntington’s disease (HD). Many reviews on AD present compelling evidence for a decisive participation of severe oxidative stress in the development of neuropathology seen in this disease.

It is the physiological age of an individual rather than the chronological age that determines one’s melatonin production. The varying extent of degenerative changes of cells and tissues may correspond to differences of melatonin production in the body

Melatonin is involved in the control of various physiological functions such as coordination of other circadian rhythms including that of the central pacemaker, the suprachiasmatic nucleus , sleep regulation , immune function , growth inhibition of malignant cells , blood pressure regulation , retinal functions , modulation of mood and behavior , free radical scavenging and other antioxidant actions.

Contrary to classical antioxidants, melatonin exerts several additional effects, which contribute either directly or indirectly to the decrease of free radicals, and some of these actions are particularly relevant to or specific for the brain. Antioxidant enzymes were repeatedly shown to be upregulated by melatonin.

Several studies show that melatonin levels are lower in AD patients compared to age-matched control subjects . Decreased CSF, cerebrospinal fluid, melatonin levels observed in AD patients reflect a decrease in pineal melatonin production rather than a diluting effect of CSF. CSF melatonin levels decrease even in preclinical stages when the patients do not manifest any cognitive impairment (at Braak stages I-II), suggesting thereby that the reduction in CSF melatonin may be an early marker for the first stages of AD.

A chronobiological phenomenon in AD observed in conjunction with disturbances of the sleep-wake cycle is “sundowning “, symptoms appearing in the late afternoon or early evening, which include reduced ability to maintain attention to external stimuli, disorganized thinking and speech, a variety of motor disturbances including agitation, wandering and repetitious physical behaviours and perceptual and emotional disturbances .

Melatonin as a sleep-promoting agent has been tried in a small non-homogenous group of elderly patients with primary insomnia (3 mg p.o. for 21 days) associated with dementia or depression. Seven out of ten dementia patients having sleep disorders treated with melatonin (3 mg p.o. at bed time) showed a significant decrease in sundowning and reduced variability of sleep onset time .
In another study, administration of 6 mg of melatonin to 10 individuals with mild cognitive impairment improved sleep, mood, and memory . Similar observations were made by other groups, too. Seven AD patients who exhibited irregular sleep-wake cycles, treated with 6 mg for 4 weeks, showed a significantly reduced percentage of nighttime activity compared to a placebo group . The efficacy of 3 mg melatonin/day at bedtime in improving the sleep and alleviating sundowning was shown in 11 elderly AD patients and in 7 patients of another study Long-term administration of melatonin in the dose of 6–9 mg to 14 AD patients with sleep disorders and sundowning agitation for a period of 2–3 years improved sleep quality . Sundowning, diagnosed clinically in all patients examined was no longer detectable in 12 patients. Another study on 45 AD patients with sleep disturbances, in which 6 mg of melatonin was given daily for 4 months, confirmed sleep improvement and suppression of sundowning .

Along with these ameliorations, which can already be seen as an important improvement, also with regard to the efforts of a caregiver, the evolution of cognitive alterations in melatonin receiving patients seemed to be halted in several individuals, as compared to AD patients not receiving melatonin.

The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at: http://www.behavioralandbrainfunctions.com/content/2/1/1

Forget counting sheep or popping pills, a team of Dutch researchers have reported the profound sleep-inducing effect of a warming body-suit.

Eight young adults and sixteen older adults, half of whom suffer from insomnia, spent two nights in a body-suit at a sleep laboratory (see image), with a night at home in between.

Water-filled micro-pipes in the suit maintained the skin temperature of the participants at either 35 degrees celsius in the cool condition or 35.4 degrees in the warm condition, fluctuating gradually between the two every 15 to 30 minutes. Importantly, core body temperature was unaffected by these subtle temperature fluctuations.

The controlled skin temperatures match the typical climate of a person’s bed and are close to the levels that people report to be of most comfort, with the warmer condition actually reported to be slightly less comfortable.

Recordings of the participants’ brain waves at night showed that warmer skin temperatures resulted in a shift in sleep depth towards deeper sleep and a reduction of their likelihood of being awake at 6am.

For instance, among the non-insomniac older participants, a subtle (only 0.4 degree) increase in skin temperature reduced the probability of being awake at 6am by a factor of 14; for those with a sleep problem, it was by a factor of five. Moreover, with the same subtle increase in temperature, the likelihood of an older insomniac participant being in a deep (slow wave) sleep was doubled for any point in the night.

Roy Raymann and colleagues who conducted the research believe skin temperature affects cells in the hypothalamus of the brain that are responsible for controlling sleep.

The findings have huge practical implications, even before the development of user-friendly body-suits. For example, it is possible that the temperature environment people choose to sleep in, based on comfort, may not be optimal for inducing sleep.

A warm bath before bedtime could help increase skin temperature at the start of the night, and a timed electric blanket could be used to increase skin temperature in the morning. Thick blankets or an all-night electric blanket won’t help because they will simply cause overheating, especially of core body temperature, which will disrupt sleep.

“The effects of even very minimal temperature manipulations within the thermoneutral comfortable range are so pronounced that they warrant further research into practical thermal manipulation applications to improve sleep,” the researchers concluded.
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Blogging on Peer-Reviewed ResearchRaymann, R.J., Swaab, D.F., Van Someren, E.J. (2008). Skin deep: enhanced sleep depth by cutaneous temperature manipulation. Brain, 131(2), 500-513. DOI: 10.1093/brain/awm315