Thursday, May 16, 2019

Make Your Bedroom Like a Cave for Your Best Sleep!

I bet this house has a wonderful comfy bedroom!
If you've read our blog for any amount of time, you'll know we are concerned about how many Americans have problems getting to sleep and staying there. Look at these statistics from the American Sleep Association:

37% of 20-39 year-olds report short sleep duration.
40% of 40-59 year-olds report short sleep duration.
35.3% adults report <7 hours of sleep during a typical 24-hour period.
While some of reports stem from health issues, the problem the ASA sees most often is insomnia, with about 30 percent of all adults reporting at least some short-term issues.

How can this happen? We live in the 21st Century, with every possible advantage. We have ways to get exercise even when we can't comfortably go outside. We have access to amazing medical facilities and the best health technology seen in the history of the world. We aren't sleeping on the ground, worried about ear-snakes, with a stone for our pillow. Why can't we sleep well? More importantly, we are we dying from lack of sleep??

There is very likely no easy answer to that question. If there were, someone would have figured it out by now and would have turned that knowledge into a fortune. They'd be laughing at us right now from their palatial moon base mansion, surrounded by their super-intelligent robot monkey butlers.

We aren't rich, nor do we have a moonbase -- yet -- but we might have an idea. See, the trick is to turn your bedroom into a cave -- or make it as much like a cave as you can while keeping the comforts of climate control and lack of bats and spiders. Caves, which is where animals like to sleep if they can, tend to share three qualities. First, they are cool. Second, they are dark. Third, they are quiet. Let's take each of these in turn.
  1. Cool: The idea sleeping temperature for the average adult sits somewhere between 60 and 67 degrees Fahrenheit. Of course, your ideal temperature will vary, but you should not have your bedroom too cold nor too hot. Every person has a "set-point" -- a temperature their body tries to maintain -- and that point falls a bit at night. If the temperature in your bedroom is too far above or below that point, your body will continually fight to either heat or cool. You won't sleep well. As a rule, though, cooler is better. Remember that you can always put on pajamas, socks, or extra blankets. 
  2. Dark: We all know it's tougher to sleep with a bright light shining on you than if you were in a dark room, right? Okay. So we don't need to hammer this point into the ground, but there is a point worth noting. Your body begins to produce melatonin, the so-called "sleep drug", in the late evening and that melatonin stays in your bloodstream throughout the night, for roughly 12 hours. Except that melatonin is very sensitive to light. It hates light. If you keep your lights right before you relax to sleep or, worse, after you're asleep, your melatonin level falls off drastically. How drastically? More than half. Dark is good. Okay? Okay. 
  3. Quiet: A study in 2012 showed links between nighttime noise and increases in cardiovascular disease and stroke in elderly people. A 2018 study showed the louder environment of a pediatric unit may have had direct effects on the children's pain tolerance and recovery time. We've covered the benefits of listening to soothing music at a relatively low volume here before, but the benefits have such positive potential we want to give you that link again. Here, also, is a link to our article on Tinnitus and how sound therapy can quiet the din. The short of it is this: quiet is good but absolute quiet isn't as good as you may think, especially if you're prone to worry. You need some noise, so make sure the noise in your bedroom is soft, regular, and soothing. 
You can sleep well. You don't have to worry about nodding off as you drive home from work. You can greet bedtime with joy and, yes, even some eager anticipation. You can do it! Just remember to make your bedroom like a cave -- cool, quiet,and dark -- and you'll be well on your way. Let us know how it goes, okay?

(Photo Credit: bernswaelz on Pixabay)

Thursday, May 9, 2019

Want to Hear Some Great Bedtime Stories? Look in These Five Places!

Right now, it's pretty much common knowledge that reading bedtime stories to children is good for them and for you. Of course, you should make sure you're reading stories to your own children, because breaking into strange bedrooms and loudly reading a Curious George book is frowned upon in most civilized nations. What you may not know, though is just how good reading is for grown-ups! A recent study at the University of Sussex showed that reading a story for as little as six minutes a day can reduce stress by as much as 68 percent. That, folks, is an amazing return on a small investment of time and attention.

The problem most of us have is that, no matter how much we may want to read, we only have so many hours in a day and we don't get a lot of time to sit down with a good book. We do, however, have another option. Bedtime stories. Specifically, bedtime stories someone else will read to us thanks to the magic of the internet. There are, quite literally, thousands of podcasts, YouTube channels, and websites from which you can get wonderful stories to put you in the perfect relaxed mindset you need at bedtime. We thought we'd share some interesting story sources with you here. Keep in mind we didn't always run to the most popular places for audio stories, such as the main audiobook stores (such as Audible and Librivox). We decided to point you to places you can get something a bit different from the usual fare, something you might just love and want to share with your friends and family.

Ready? Here we go.
  1. Sleep Stories by Calm: You may be familiar with the Calm app, but not quite so familiar with the original stories it has, narrated by some quite-familiar voices. The Calm folks put a few of their stories on a YouTube playlist where you can listen to them for free. Of course, you'll have to pay their subscription fee if you want the full library, but the four stories offered in the playlist are worth hearing more than once. 
  2. HorrorBabble: While we're on YouTube, let's wander over to the scary side of town. The folks behind HorrorBabble have built an impressive library of stories from well-known authors, mostly taken from the public domain. You will get a healthy dose of Poe, Lovecraft, Hodgson, and others, but that's not all. They've begun to build a collection of original stories, written by up-and-coming authors and the channel's main narrator, Ian Gordon. 
  3. Sleep With Me Podcast: Drew Ackerman used to go to sleep listening to late-night radio comedies, which led him to create his own podcast, full of funny and calming stories. The show, which you can find here, isn't your traditional bedtime story fare, though. Drew rambles through his thoughts on the day, his sleeping issues, television shows or movies he's watched, or different business ideas he's cooked up while trying to get to sleep in a voice that'll remind you of Ben Stein. At some point, he ties everything together in a nice little package, but you'll probably be asleep before he gets there. But why not try?
  4. Scare You to Sleep Podcast: I found this show while looking for solid scary stories made just for bedtime. The stories can be uneven at times, as the host pulls in tales from reddit creepypasta boards and original stories written by listeners, but you'll get some top-notch tales here as well. The host, Shelby Scott, has an amazing voice and does fantastic work weaving in sound effects and background noises to immerse you in the story she's telling. It might just be your kind of thing! 
  5. The Great Detectives of Old Time Radio: Do you like detective stories? Great! This show will be your nighttime slumber-maker. Host Adam Graham presents the adventures and exploits of characters like Boston Blackie and Joe Friday in stories guaranteed to pull you in and make you forget the worries and cares of the day. The only issue you may have is getting so engrossed in the stories that you won't want to sleep right away!

What do you think? If you like these, let us know. Also, if you have a favorite place for bedtime listening, share that with us in the comments. We'd love to hear from you! We'd also love for you to check out our pillow, which lets you listen to whatever story you want in cozy and comfortable privacy thanks to our Night Owl speakers!

(Photo Credit: Ramdlon on Pixabay)

Thursday, May 2, 2019

What is Sleep Apnea and How Might It Be Ruining Your Sleep?


In lieu of a "sleep apnea" picture, which is really tough to find, here's a sleepy cat.
According to Dr. Brandon Peters, roughly 90 million Americans report some variety of "sleep-disordered breathing". That is, they have some sort of breathing issue that crops up when they're asleep that affects their sleep quality. Most often, the issue manifests itself as snoring, which is when the soft tissues of the mouth and throat relax and partially obstruct the airway. The lungs pull the air through those tissues, which makes a loud and annoying noise that may or may not wake up everyone in the house except the person snoring and make those people want to grab pillow or some hard, blunt object and silence the snorer with extreme prejudice.

Or maybe that's just how it was in my house...

However, snoring can be a sign of a more serious condition called obstructive sleep apnea. What happens in these cases is the sleeper's airway partially or completely collapses, which cuts off their airway entirely and causes them to wake up abruptly. These collapses can happen several times an hour (and in severe cases, over 30 times an hour). Obstructive sleep apnea can be a dangerous condition if left untreated. The American Sleep Apnea Association estimates roughly 22 million Americans suffer from sleep apnea, which is a lot, but it gets worse. Up to 80 percent of people with moderate to severe apnea never get an official diagnosis. They figure they have a snoring problem or they just can't get comfortable at night. They might change mattresses or pillows frequently and chalk up their lack of sleep to "that's just how it is".

But that's not just how it is. No one should suffer from sleep apnea without getting proper medical treatment. Let's look at a few signs that might point to the condition.
  1. Loud snoring after which you wake up sputtering or choking. Of course, you'll most likely have to have someone keep an eye on you in your sleep, but I'm willing to bed if your loved one sees you do this, they'll say something. But ask. 
  2. Waking up with a dry mouth, frequently. We all get cottonmouth once in a while, especially during the winter when the air is dry. Frequent dry mouth is an indication you're breathing through your mouth for long periods, which can be an indication of apnea incidents. 
  3. Excessive sleepiness and irritability during the day. We all get tired during the day once in a while. If you're tired every day or find yourself irritable more often than not, you might not be sleeping well at night. Specifically, your apnea episodes might be waking you up during REM sleep, which means you're not doing a lot of dreaming, which means you're not getting a lot of the most restful sleep. Which brings us to:
  4. You have a hard time remembering whether you dreamed. We all go through times when we knew we dreamed at night but we can't remember our dreams. That's normal. If you go a long time and can't remember even having a dream, you may be experiencing interruptions during the dreaming phase of your sleep cycle. 
  5. Morning headache. One of the big signs your brain has not gotten as much oxygen as it should (which will happen when you stop breathing several times each night), is the morning headache. Make sure you didn't drink a lot the night before, because that can also give you a morning headache. Check for vodka. If you're clear, the issue may be apnea!
If you have a couple of these symptoms, don't mess around with them. Talk to your doctor. Ask them to set you up for a sleep test. There are two different types of test -- either at a sleep center or at home. Your doctor will let you know which one is best for the symptoms you describe but you don't have to worry. Neither sleep test is painful and both are very easy to take. Basically, you're going to sleep for a few hours. How easy is that?

So. Let's say you get the tests and your do, in fact, have sleep apnea. What then? Well, your doctor is goig to prescribe you a machine we call a "CPAP", which stands for continuous positive airway pressure. The machine is smaller than a showbox, usually, and pushes air through a hose into a mask you wear while you're asleep. The air keeps your airway open all night so you can get a good night's sleep. Simple. Of course, there is a variety of masks and different kinds of machines. You can sit down with your doctor and go through all the details to get the machine and the mask that works best for you.

The thing to remember here is that your CPAP is designed to let you sleep the way you should. It may seem like a nuisance at first (or even if you're an experienced CPAP user!), but it helps. You can, of course, do other things to help as well. Side-sleeping seems to help people with sleep apnea rest better, with fewer sleep interruptions according to a couple different studies. We happen to know a good pillow for side-sleeping folks, which, as it happens, works very well for people who need to wear CPAP headgear at night! Kind of handy how that worked out, isn't it?

The conclusion here is that sleep apnea is a serious condition that plenty of people have. If you think you may have it, don't wait around for it to fix itself and don't think you have to suffer because that's just how it is. Talk to your doctor. Get the sleep test. Get your CPAP machine. Get a good night's sleep on a comfortable pillow made for side-sleepers just like you.

(Photo Credit: utroja0 on Pixabay)

Make Your Bedroom Like a Cave for Your Best Sleep!

I bet this house has a wonderful comfy bedroom! If you've read our blog for any amount of time, you'll know we are concerned abo...