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Starting with a striking claim: Netflix represents the pinnacle of wickedness. To be more precise, it’s the binge-watching habit it encourages that’s concerning, right? Before diving into the core subject of this discussion, let’s take a moment to examine this phenomenon.

Binge-watching has indeed crawled its way into our culture. If you start researching the facts, you will find that Netflix subscribers watch 140 million hours of TV shows every single day. With shows like Stranger Things and Narcos, it is no wonder too. Actually, according to a Nielsen report, 361.000 people stayed up to watch the whole first season of Stranger Things back in 2016 when it was released. To top that off, further studies suggest that 70 percent of North Americans not only binge but stay up late doing that.

We get sucked into episode after episode, and we love it! Why you might be asking yourself? Engaging in an activity that’s really enjoyable – as binge-watching is – our brains start producing a lot of dopamine. Knowing how our ganglia work, dopamine is the bread and butter of internal reward systems and pleasure. Netflix simply feels good. We should keep doing this – our neurons tell us. What our brain fails to mention is that by doing so, we significantly increase the risk of sleep deprivation and all the turmoil that comes with it. To sum it up, the more we watch, the more dopamine gets produced, resulting in the cultural phenomenon we know and love as binge-watching.

Finally, we get to the million dollar questions – What does this mean for our sleeping patterns and what can we do to keep our dopamine inducing, binge-watching phenomenon at bay?

Binge-Watching and Sleep Deprivation

Seeing as how most binge-watching sessions happen during the evening hours, we often find ourselves sleep deprived. We wake up the next morning tired and exhausted after our 4-hour hour stare at the Netflix shows the night before. Doing this for a while means utterly messing up both the quality and the quantity of your sleep and circadian rhythms. As we are sure we told you before – the circadian isn’t a forgiving bunch of rhythms.

What happens when sleep deprivation hits us on our foreheads? We risk developing an array of problems ranging from physical fatigue, through impaired memory and cognition to mental health issues – anxiety and depression. Not to mention worsening our symptoms of insomnia and other underlying sleep disorders.  How does all of this connect to our Netflix habits? You see, binge-watching is an excellent escape from the day to day life. It’s essentially a great stress management tool. A tough day at the office? Anxiety-inducing exam? Let’s put Black Mirror on for a few hours and decompose. What we do not count on though, is the fact that losing those precious hours of sleep to TV shows will only make the next day at the office even tougher and more stressful.

The question is – how can we change our watching habits to complement our sleep and help our sleep-deprived selves? Well, the answer is not that hard. You just need to limit the episode count! Being careful of how!

You see, proactivity is the key to a fulfilled life and it is the key for healthier Netflix binges. It is easy putting Narcos on and not caring where those evening hours fly off to. It will take a little bit of mental effort, but make a conscious decision to limit how many episodes you watch per session. You could even develop a routine of going to bed at the same time every day. That will straighten you out quickly. The only thing you have got to do next is stick to the schedule, no matter the power of a cliffhanger.

We know, we know, to resist the temptation of “watching just another one” is condemning and painful. That is precisely why you will find the following tips and tricks very useful when it comes to improving your Netflix habits and sleeping patterns.

Download a few episodes of your favorite show and block your access to the internet – this will really limit you. The next thing you could do is wait the work week out and only indulge in this guilty pleasure on the weekend – making your overall sleeping routine binge-proof.

Here is another excellent advice – Don’t engage in Netflix alone and bring some friends along for the ride. They will do wonders in holding you accountable for your decisions. There is a hidden advantage to this, as well. Having a couple of friends over means that you can stir up a great discussion about the show after each episode.

Last, but not least, keep the binge-watching confined to the living room, no matter how late you stay awake. Seriously, we can’t stress this enough. Never engage in a Netflix session from bed. The bedroom is sacred, and as such, you should use it for sleeping only. Well, sleeping and sex. On a side note, we have already established our brains do not always work in our best interests. Indulge the idea of Netflix from bed, and you will find your mind identifying it as a place for entertainment. To conclude this piece of advice, just take the time to keep your sleeping area free of any technology, noise, and light to maximize natural melatonin secretion.  

The Link Between Pre-Sleep Arousal and Binge-Watching

Now that we have covered the role this cultural phenomenon plays on sleep deprivation, we have to discuss the link between pre-sleep arousal and binge-watching. The idea is quite simple, really. Researchers found that in addition to displacing sleep and affecting melatonin output, being tied up to a screen has the effect of negatively impacting our sleep through cognitive arousal. Binge-watching leads to increased activity in both the central and autonomic nervous systems, which in turn leads to prolonged sleep onset. We experience strong emotional and cognitive involvement during our time with our favorite characters.  In other words, continuous exposure to exciting stories and plotlines stimulates the brain, directly affecting the time needed to fall asleep. Eyes wide open at 3 AM after a whole season of Punisher? Ring a bell, anyone?

What to do about it? For starters, manually disable the autoplay feature. Instead of letting the episodes fly one after the other, take a break in between each one. Pace around the house. Make yourself a cup of tea. Bust out your journal and reflect on the previous episode. Follow the 20/20/20 rule – for every 20 minutes of screen time, look away at something 20 meters away for 20 seconds. This will give your brain time to process information, therefore beating both the pre-sleep arousal and the infamous autoplay loop.

You are going to like the next advice since it allows you to continue binge-watching and bypass some of the pre-sleep arousals that come with it. Choose the content with utmost care. Watching Orange Is the New Black isn’t the same as watching BBC’s Planet Earth. The more dramatic the content, the more stimulated we are, the more power pre-sleep arousal has over our sleep hygiene.

Hiding Behind Blue Light

As we have tackled how sleep deprivation and pre-sleep arousal mess up our sleep hygiene, there is another subtle way our exposure to binge-watching negatively impact our sleep – blue light. What is the science behind it, exactly? Blue light is one of the brightest wavelengths on the color spectrum that our brains are susceptible to. In fact, our neurons actually perceive it as natural daylight. As a result, exposure to blue light stops melatonin activation at the right time. As we all know, melatonin is a sleep-inducing hormone solely responsible for taking us to the dreamland.

Okay, but what kind of relationship does this have with Netflix and binge-watching exactly?

You see, your screen (iPhone, TV, Laptop, you name it) this blue light and they do that very actively. Let us not forget another fact – melatonin secretion is highest during the night. Following the previously explained line of logic, the more we engage in binging, the more we suppress the melatonin activation. Netflix and blue light subtly trick our brains into thinking it is still daytime, delaying the hormone’s secretion, thus making it harder for us to fall asleep.

You want to doze off exactly when you planned to and find the solution to limit your exposure to this annoying issue? Control those blue lights! Check out of your binge-watching at least half an hour before bedtime. And no, you should not end the Netflix session only to turn to your phone and the Facebook app. That’s still hiding behind blue light!

Do you know what else you could try to counteract the negative consequences of blue light exposure if you still insist on binge-watching? Turn on the Night Shift option that comes with your device. Don’t be lazy. Check those settings. It is there. We promise. This substitutes the blue with the red lights, which are a whole lot of healthier when it comes to your beauty sleep. Which option will you choose? Blue – staying in the Matrix and living an illusion, or red – getting out and experiencing freedom? Pick wisely!

Another suggestion would be to get as much natural light as you possibly can. Go outside, especially during the daytime. Walk for a few kilometers. Preferably do that without thinking about Altered Carbon. This will make you tired enough and ready for bedtime; Netflix won’t even cross your mind.

Conclusion

We would take the time and tell you to give up binge-watching completely, but we know that would just repel you from our blog. Don’t blame us! We are very concerned about your sleep! Instead, we hope we gave you insight into the roles and connections between this cultural phenomenon and sleep deprivation. And if explaining how pre-sleep arousal and exposure to blue light further diminish both the quality and the quantity of our sleep makes you more careful about your binge-watching behavior, we consider our job done. Yeah, yeah, we certainly know you are still hell-bent on binge-watching instead of sleeping. That’s why we took the effort to advise and suggest all those little tips and tricks found within this post. They will undoubtedly help you in regulating your circadian rhythms and improving your sleep hygiene. The benefits of sticking by these methods are obvious, are they not? Instead of falling asleep to the 12th episode, anticipating and sweating about what happens in the next one, you whisk away to your dreams in a relaxed, calm state. There you have it, folks. With just a little bit of mental effort, you will be counting those sheep to a 100 with a smile in no time.

Research has shown that a vast majority of animals go through some form of sleep. While it seems that only mammals and birds experience REM sleep and dream, all animals require some period of rest. Jellyfish, among the simplest and oldest multicellular life forms with a primitive nervous system, display behaviors indicative of sleep. These organisms are over 500 million years old, older than dinosaurs, suggesting that sleep may be a universal characteristic among all animals. This provides evidence that sleep plays a crucial role in the renewal of the physical and mental faculties, memory strengthening, and learning processes.

When we think about how sleep works, we often imagine laying down in a comfortable position in our bed, with our eyes closed, disconnected from the world. Because of that image, people often have a hard time imagining if animals can sleep. It’s easy for mammals, as we’ve seen tons of cute sleeping dog and cat videos, but when it comes to animals that we are less familiar with, we don’t have a clue. If your kid has asked you if their pet goldfish sleeps, and you didn’t know what to say, don’t worry, we have all of the answers for you.

How Do Fish Sleep?

Fishes do not have eyelids, so they can’t close them. One of the purposes of eyelids beside protecting an eye is to spread the fluid across it, so it can function adequately without drying out. When you are always in the water, you don’t have that problem. Fishes also have a far simpler central nervous system than mammals, so they don’t have specific regions of the brain that we do. Take neocortex, for example, that plays a considerable role in sleep. It is a part that produces certain brain waves that are distinctive in different stages of sleep in humans. Also, it is very active while we are dreaming in REM sleep, which means that fish don’t experience REM sleep and that they most likely don’t dream. We say most likely because we can’t be a hundred percent certain, considering how complicated even the fishes’ central nervous system is. Future scientific research might show that they, in fact, experience dreams, but that the other parts of the brain are involved.

Because fish are lacking these structures that would undoubtedly say that they are sleeping, we had to define other parameters to describe the way they rest. These are:

• A state of prolonged inactivity
• A typical resting posture
• The repetitive pattern of this inactive behavior during the 24-hour cycles
• Reduced perception of external stimuli

According to these criteria, sleep in fish is a period of inactivity, almost always with the same posture and in the same location, at the same time every day, while having decreased sensitivity to outside disturbances. Another criterion might be the presence of “rebound sleep.” The induced absence of sleep-like behavior for some time should mean that the inactivity will be more present during the following days that fish is left alone.

The Difference in Sleep Habits Between Fishes

There are over 30,000 species of fish, so naturally, there is a lot of variation in the way that they sleep. Sometimes, even those four parameters that we have described are not enough to tell if the fish is sleeping or not, cause they might not fulfill all four, but it is apparent that they are resting.

Some quietly float on the surface or near the bottom, while others drift round with an occasional flick of a fin to keep them going. Some get the needed rest under a rock, in a whole, or in hiding between marine algae. There are some that even create nest-like structures in the sand and the ones that bury themselves when going to sleep. Some parrotfish have glands inside the gills that secrete mucus. This way, when going to sleep, they produce a cocoon, that protects them from parasites, but it also blocks their smell from potential predators lurking nearby.

Some species like green bromis sleep in branching corals, and they have evolved an interesting symbiotic relationship. While fish is sleeping, it energetically moves its fins, increasing the flow of oxygenated water around the corals. Because algae that live there can’t photosynthesize and produce oxygen during the night, it looks this peculiar sleep behavior is needed for the coral survival.

Spotted wolfish is a beautiful example of how fish behavior can be similar to our sleep. Because it doesn’t have pelvic fins to stabilize its body, this fish flips on its side while sleeping. Others, like bluehead wrasse, are so unresponsive during the resting period, that scientist stated that they were even able to pick them up by hand and bring them to surface without waking them up.

Some fish even catch some rest while schooling. There are a lot of fish in the school that can spot the predator if it comes nearby, so some members decide to turn on autopilot and snooze for a bit. Another fascinating thing about fish is that they can produce electrical waves and communicate by them, so electrical signal can fastly spread between school and alarm everybody about the danger.

As the quality and quantity of light can vary drastically with the depth of the water, other factors can tell fish when is the time to rest. The temperature of water, availability of food, and the presence of predators are all valid signals for a fish for adjusting their sleep/wake rhythm. Some even can switch between sleeping at night or day, depending on these other factors.

The most studied fish is zebrafish (Danio rerio). It’s a great model organism as it shows clear signs of sleep, it stops moving, it’s breathing and heart rate slow down, and it takes much longer to respond to outside stimuli. It’s also observed to get a rebound effect, meaning that when deprived of sleep for some time by the researches, it tries to catch up on the lost sleep when it is left alone in the dark again. However, if the light stayed on, the rebound effect has not been observed. The study of zebrafish is providing some good info about how sleep works, and how the sleep deprivation can affect animals as well.

Do All Fish Sleep?

Most fish are diurnal animals, meaning that they are active during the day and sleep at night. However, there are some that are nocturnal, so they are active during the night and resting during the day. Weirdly, there are some fish that seem not to sleep at all.

Bluefish and mackerel continuously swim in the big seawater aquaria, and even though they seem to slow down at night, they remain responsive to outside disturbances and the introduction of food. However, scientists argue that this state is induced due to the high stress of living in captivity.

There are some fish that have a prolonged period of sleep absence, or they seem to be completely lacking the rest:

• Tuna and some sharks seem not to sleep at all. Scientists are still not sure why that is, but they hypothesize that it is because of the role that sleep has on memory and storing information. Rest serves a purpose to embed memories in our brain and to process all the stimuli that we get during the day. Since those fishes sleep in a rather boring environment, in the deep ocean where the scenery doesn’t change much, it is suggested that they don’t need to relax. Some cave-dwelling fish are also restless, and it may be for the same reason, lack of visual sensory input. However, some scientists are not sure that these creatures are entirely sleepless, and they attribute it to a lack of observation. They propose that some sharks and tunas might have bursts of microsleep, that are observed in some other animals.
• Some fish lack sleep during the juvenile stage. Mozambique tilapia is one of those, and it is observed that it doesn’t sleep for the first 22 weeks of its life. Since tracking rest patterns for a long time in fish is not the most attractive topic of research, scientists still need to figure out whether this is a common phenomenon. Larvae and adults of zebrafish seem to follow the same sleep patterns.
• No rest during migration. Fish seem to be occupied during the period of movement, so there is no time to catch some snooze time. It’s interesting that scientists have created an experiment where they simulated the autumn condition during the winter to see how the tautog would behave. They usually migrate during the fall, so they started to be more active and didn’t sleep. The juveniles weren’t affected which is consistent since they don’t migrate; only adults do.
• Lack of sleep during spawning or parenting period. Some species like the mentioned tautog, bullhead, minnows, yellow perch, and many others seem to be active continuously through spawning season. Others do that when it’s time to care for their eggs. Because eggs need the flow of oxygen all the time, fish look after them and fan them to provide a continuous stream of oxygenated water.

Why Do Fish Sleep?

It seems that this resting period in fish has the same crucial restorative function as it does in humans. Sleep is a time when our brain can do a little maintenance, and it can send signals to repair muscles and other tissues in our body. It’s also a period necessary for our memory storage and learning, and it seems that it plays the same role in fish as well. It’s just that their brains are much simpler than ours, so the effects are not as apparent. Because of the simplicity of their central nervous system, they also don’t go through the same sleep stages as we do, and they don’t experience REM sleep and don’t seem to dream.

Fish can also switch the time of the day when they sleep depending on the outside conditions. Water temperature, the presence of predators, and availability of food can trigger this. Atlantic salmon is an example of this, as they turn nocturnal in colder waters. Fish are not endothermic organisms, like mammals and birds, and their body temperature depends on the temperature of water. Their muscles also produce heat while swimming, so they have to keep move to be warm. Some fish like tuna produce so much heat that they are considered partially endothermic. When the salmon gets in the colder waters, they slow it down (as they turn a bit sluggish) so being active during the night provides them some safety against predators.

Sleeping Goldfish

Another valid question about our pets, since they are not in the wild is how they sleep in a tank. And do our pets like goldfish, guppies, and betta fish sleep at all?

Guppies like sleeping in the dark, so they mostly rest at night when all the lights are off. They usually hover in one place just above the bottom. Sometimes they can float on the surface, but if this happens during the day, it is an indication of some problem.

Bettas sleep in a variety of ways, some float in one place, while others can rest on a substrate or plants in their aquarium. Their gill movement is considerably lower during this period.

Goldfish are diurnal, meaning that they are active during the day. They’ll most likely sleep at night when you turn all your lights out. These pets are low maintenance, and despite the popular belief, they are quite smart. Forget about that myth that they only have a few second memory span; they can remember things for months, even a year. They can also be trained to respond to different kind of music, color, or other sensory cues. In one interesting experiment, scientists thought goldfish to press a lever to get food. Then they limited the time during the day when they would get food by pressing a bar to one hour. It took them very little to learn this, and not only did they use this opportunity to get extra food, but they also didn’t touch the leaver during the hours that it didn’t have a rewarding effect, meaning that they very much have a developed memory and a sense of time.

If your fish is sleeping upside down or on its side, know that this isn’t a usual behavior, unless they told you that it is how that species rests. Other than that, it most likely indicates a health problem, and you should take your pet to the vet.

Experiencing hallucinations when falling asleep or waking up can be intense and vivid, involving visual or sensory illusions. These phenomena can include seeing vivid images, feeling sensations of motion like falling or running, or sensing an unseen presence in the room. Although they mainly appear in the form of visual experiences, they can also affect the senses of hearing, touch, taste, and smell. Such hallucinations are categorized as parasomnias, which refer to sleep disruptions that occur as one transitions from one sleep stage to another or from sleep to wakefulness.

It is easy to confuse them with a state of dreaming. When hallucinating in your sleep, you are not sure whether you are awake or asleep. You may be thinking you are having a nightmare. However, when you wake up from a nightmare, you are certain it occurred while you were asleep, and it’s clearly recognized as a dream. When it comes to sleep hallucinations, you may think they were real.

Sleep-related hallucinations generally occur at one of the two following times:

•    When you are about to fall asleep (hypnagogic)
•    When you are about to wake up (hypnopompic)

When sleep hallucinations occur during the day, they may be a symptom of narcolepsy. People with narcolepsy often struggle with sleep attacks (suddenly falling asleep in the middle of any activity, such as driving), sleep paralysis, and hypnagogic hallucinations. The hallucination and the sleep paralysis may occur at the same time but on different nights. These individuals also often experience parasomnias such as sleep talking and sleepwalking (somnambulism).

Complex visual hallucinations such as stationary images of people or animals often occur just after being suddenly awakened. You don’t recall being in the middle of a dream when you wake up. You will know that you are awake. At first, you will feel afraid and think the images you are seeing are real. Some people even jump out of the bed in terror and injure themselves while doing so. The images may be distorted in shape or size, and they are typically present for a few minutes. If the light is turned on, they often go away. Migraines may also cause sleep hallucinations, and in that case, the visual images are followed by sharp head pain.

Prevalence

According to research, sleep-related hallucinations are rare in children, and around 40% of adults experience it. Hallucinations often coexist with other sleep disorders, such as narcolepsy and sleep paralysis.

Symptoms

Common symptoms of sleep-related hallucinations include:

•    Excessive daytime sleepiness
•    Fragmented sleep
•    Sleep paralysis

Sleep hallucinations often seem dream-like, but during the delusion, the person is considered awake. Dreams always occur in REM sleep and when a person is fully asleep.

A hallucination is defined as perceiving the presence of an object or an event through any of the five senses without the actual object or event being real or actually occurring. Hallucinations are typically visual, but may also be auditory. Visual hallucinations cause extreme fear and panic. Auditory ones are more frequent when a person undergoes a lot of stress. Typical auditory hallucinations are very simple and rarely don’t include more than sounds of beeping, high-pitched noises, random noises, popping noises or unclear notes.

Severe cases may produce more complex hallucinations such as hearing voices, which are associated with rapid thoughts. This usually leads the person to believe the voices are real.

When it comes to tactile hallucinations, most common are the sensations of bugs and spiders crawling all over the person’s body. This mostly occurs due to alcohol and drug abuse. Experiencing this type of sensation in sleep may make the person feel rather unpleasant, start scratching, picking or even harming their body in an attempt to get rid of the bugs.

Types of Sleep-Related Hallucinations

Sleep hallucination can be either hypnagogic or hypnopompic.

Hypnagogic hallucinations occur while falling asleep, and they are typically visual, auditory or tactile. Hypnagogic hallucinations are twice as more common than hypnopompic hallucinations. They are often a symptom of narcolepsy, but a person without it can also experience hallucinations. Researchers and sleep experts believe most people will experience a hypnagogic type of hallucination at least once in their life.

Hypnopompic hallucinations are common during the transition from sleep to wakefulness. Like hypnagogic hallucinations, these episodes are short-lasting and can be visual, auditory and tactile. Hypnopompic hallucinations are rarer than hypnagogic hallucinations and experienced only by 6 to 13% of adults.

Sleep Paralysis and Lucid Dreams

It’s important to know that sleep-related hallucinations (especially hypnagogic type) are different from other sleep disorders and related conditions such as lucid dreaming and sleep paralysis. Lucid dreaming and sleep paralysis can also cause the perception of things that are not real, but they have nothing to do with hallucinations.

Lucid dreams are very realistic dreams that occur only when a person is asleep, and sleep paralysis is also a separate condition. Sometimes, hypnagogic hallucinations and sleep paralysis can occur simultaneously. During sleep paralysis, the sleeper is immobile but mentally conscious of their surroundings. This may cause fear, anxiety, and due to the physical immobility, the sleeper may have difficulty breathing and experience muscle tightness. Feeling like you are frozen in place may lead to panic and shock. These episodes of sleep paralysis and hypnagogic hallucinations are often remembered as a very vivid dream where they were frozen in place or unable to move. In reality, it was these two conditions working together.

Causes

In the past, sleep-related hallucinations were often associated with mental disease. Today, we know that sleep-related hallucinations may occur without any mental illness. However, people suffering from a mental disease such as depression, anxiety or bipolar disorder are more likely to experience them. Alcohol use, certain medications, brain injury insomnia, sleep deprivation, and stress may also cause sleep-related hallucinations. Just like certain sleep disorders, the risk of sleep-related hallucinations may be inherited.

When it comes to medication, taking tricyclic antidepressants or hallucinogenic drugs like LSD may increase the risk of experiencing sleep-related hallucinations.

Physiology of Sleep-Related Hallucinations

As you probably know by now, during sleep, many parts of our brain are active and working on a lot of different things. During REM sleep, people dream, and we usually have at least three dreams per night, although, most of the times, we don’t remember any. The reasons for dreaming are still not completely understood, but researchers believe this may be a way for the brain to recall memories and sort through information. Some information will be stored into long-term memory, while others will simply be forgotten.

Through the night, our body cycles through different sleep stages multiple times a night. Dreaming and parasomnia, such as sleepwalking and sleep talking, typically occur during deeper stages of sleep. When a person has just fallen asleep or wakes up, they are usually in a phase of light sleep. Sleep disorders like narcolepsy can cause a person to directly enter into deep sleep or to wake up in the middle of slow-wave sleep. Due to this, dreams and sleep-related hallucinations become more vivid and feel more real.

Physicians still don’t know what causes hypnagogic hallucinations in people who do not struggle with narcolepsy. Hypnagogic hallucinations often occur in periods when deeper and lighter sleep overlap.

Diagnosis

Hypnagogic and hypnopompic hallucinations are not dangerous and do not pose a risk to your health. However, if you experience hallucinations, there is probably an underlying health condition that is causing them. If you experience any of the following symptoms, you should visit a doctor.

Symptoms of narcolepsy – muscle weakness, excessive daytime sleepiness, and disturbed sleep at night are the most common signs of this sleep disorder.

Symptoms of schizophrenia – signs include hearing voices, having confused thoughts, and experiencing changes in behavior.

Symptoms of Parkinson’s disease – signs include slow movement, stiff muscles, and shaking hands and shaking in other parts of the body.

Due to severe migraines, a person may start seeing colors, lights or images that don’t exist. These visualizations are also known as auras. They usually occur with the headache and are different from sleep-related hallucinations.

Hypnagogic hallucinations can be very disturbing and cause stress, anxiety, and insomnia. If the illusions are starting to affect your everyday life and activities (if they have become common), you must see a doctor. In most cases, treating the underlying condition will make the hallucinations disappear.

In order to establish whether your hallucinations are linked to a sleep disorder, a sleep specialist will have to evaluate your medical history, sleep history, and sleep patterns. Diagnosing may involve using a polysomnogram, and an overnight sleep study. In some cases, such as when you are having strong migraines, a doctor may request an MRI of the brain.

If you seek help from a sleep specialist, your appointment will begin by having to answer questions such as:

•    When did your hallucinations start?
•    How often do your hallucinations occur?
•    How long do your hallucinations last?
•    Do you have any other sleep problems, such as insomnia?
•    Are you sleepy during the day?

After taking information about your sleep, a specialist will ask for more details about your medical and psychiatric history. It is very important to be completely honest and tell them about any past or present drug or medication use.

You will have to track your sleep for two weeks in order to help the doctor get more insight into your sleeping patterns. Tracking your sleep patterns is important for better diagnosing your condition and deciding what treatment is most suitable for it.

If your hallucinations are severely disturbing your sleep, you will probably have to undergo a sleep study. During a sleep study, a specialist will measure your brain, heart and lung activity, and look for fragmented sleep patterns that might indicate an underlying disorder. The activity is measured by using a polysomnogram. Apart from charting your brain waves, heartbeat and breathing, this device also tracks how your arms and legs move during sleep. A sleep study will reveal if any sleep disorders, such as narcolepsy, may be causing your hallucinations.

Apart from keeping a sleep diary and undergoing a sleep study, the doctor may recommend a multiple sleep latency test also known as the daytime nap study. The multiple sleep latency test measures how quickly you fall asleep during the day and what kind of sleep you have when you nap. This test is important because it may reveal whether your hallucinations are caused or related to narcolepsy.

Treatment

Treatment for sleep-related hallucinations depends on their cause. If they are caused by using alcohol, drugs, or medications, discontinuing the usage of these substances will solve the problem and end the hallucinations. In case they are caused by a sleep disorder such as narcolepsy or insomnia, treating those underlying conditions will resolve the unwanted hallucinations. Often, hallucinations will decrease over time, and doing things such as avoiding stress and prioritizing a good night’s rest will also help.

The amount of sleep you need depends on your age. Recommendations are:

•    8-10 hours for teens (14-17 years old)
•    7-9 hours for adults ages (18-65 years old)
•    7-8 hours for older adults, age over 65

Keeping a regular sleep/wake schedule and creating a simple bedtime ritual to unwind before sleep also helps you a lot. Lastly, if you struggle with idiopathic hallucinations, you should avoid alcohol, and drugs that may cause or further aggravate your condition.

In some cases, hypnagogic hallucinations are caused by anxiety. To treat them, your doctor may suggest medication, cognitive behavioral therapy, meditation and similar treatment measures that will help you reduce anxiety and stress. If you have narcolepsy, your family doctor or sleep specialist will prescribe narcolepsy drugs.

If you feel like you can live with your sleep-related hallucinations, you may not need treatment at all. If there is no underlying medical condition, the only thing left to do is to make certain lifestyle changes that may help with lessening the frequency of hallucinations. For example, getting proper rest at night, and avoiding alcohol and certain medications may help. If hallucinations cause disrupted sleep or anxiety, your doctor might prescribe medication.

Complications

As mentioned above, in most cases, sleep-related hallucinations do not affect your overall wellbeing. However, it is best to visit a doctor to be sure. When an underlying medical condition does not cause these hallucinations, they usually do not have long-term or severe complications. Most common effects of hallucinations are insomnia, stress, and anxiety. Sleep hallucinations may disturb not only the affected individual but also their sleep partner and other household members. This typically occurs when the person hallucinating wakes up in terror and starts screaming or shouting. Also, a person experiencing a hallucination injure themselves by falling out of bed and similar. If such issues occur, they definitely pose harm for health and wellbeing, in which case you should consult your doctor for advice or treatment.

Hitting the open road and venturing into unknown territories is something everyone cherishes. There’s an undeniable excitement in encountering new people and places. Engaging with residents, immersing yourself in their cultural richness, and sampling a variety of exotic foods and drinks can truly expand your horizons, transforming you into a more globally informed individual. Regardless of whether it’s a vacation or a business trip, making the most out of your travels is always the best strategy.

However, sleep is one of the things that can suffer during traveling. Crowded transportation, huge lines at the airport, not enough room for your legs, crying babies, people sneezing and talking loudly are some of the things that can make you anxious and harder to fall asleep. Not to mention that if you are traveling between time zones, jet lag can disrupt your sleeping rhythms completely. But don’t worry, we have a list of tips for you on how to properly prepare for your trip, and what to do to get the most rest possible and avoid sleep deprivation.

How Does Travel Impact Your Sleep?

When you are traveling, you are likely to experience irregular sleep cycles, daytime fatigue, and a weakened immune system at some point. That can lead to an inflammation or infection, or catching a cold which means that it will be even harder to get a night of sound sleep.

Business trips are often associated with busy schedules, lots of work and stress. On top of that, there are always late night gatherings with a considerable amount of alcohol and food, which is not good for your sleep. Due to this, business travelers are the most fatigued ones amongst all travelers.

Missing sleep is bad for you, and the more you do it, the more adverse the consequences, such as worse mood, and you can’t perform as well as your brain didn’t have enough time to restore, which leads to impaired focus and performance. Sleep is also crucial for storing memories and learning new things, so the less rest you have, the more difficult it will be to focus and obtain new knowledge.

Business travelers have been shown to perform 20% worse than what they thought. They also performed best during mid-day, compared to the usual belief that we are most productive in the morning. Half of those who rated their performance highly unintentionally fell asleep during the trip. Many business travelers only sleep for 5 hours a day, meaning that they lost a full night of sleep during a 4-day trip. However, moderate exercise looks like it could help with some of the effects, as those who practiced regularly had a significantly improved overall performance.

Traveling across the time zones can lead to jet lag, which can mess up your sleep patterns. That’s because the area where you end up has a different sunset and sunrise times, and you need to adjust to new conditions. Your brain picks up signals from the environment, and it regulates your internal clock based on that. That’s how you know at what time you should wake up, eat, fall asleep, and do other daily activities.

Sickness is another thing you need to worry about when traveling because you come in contact with a high number and different range of germs than what you are generally facing. The plane is a confined space, and it needs to recycle the air from the cabin, which makes it a perfect place for germs to thrive. Many strangers often use hotel rooms, and no matter how clean they look, they are full of bacteria. A new destination means a new combination of air pollutants and allergens, which can impair your health as well. All of these in addition to sleep deprivation that can weaken your immune system means that you are more likely to get sick and get even less sleep. That’s why you need to take special precautions to protect your health while traveling.

What is Jet Lag?

Basically jet lag is a consequence of traveling too fast across the time zones. “Jet” in the name is there because the plane is currently the fastest way of transport, and it is the cause of this condition in most cases. However, you can still suffer from jet lag even if you’ve used other kinds of transportation and didn’t fly at all.

Your body has an exact time for doing things, depending on your environment. When you move across time zones, your circadian rhythms are disrupted. It means that your internal clock that tells you when the time to go to sleep and wake up is now isn’t in sync with the new environment, because the conditions changed too quickly and you didn’t have time to adjust. Symptoms include poor mood, daytime sleepiness, fatigue, difficulty getting to sleep at the right time, decreased focus and cognitive performance, and they can last up to a few days.

But you don’t have to experience the consequences passively; you can take some action to prevent jet lag from happening or minimize the effects it has on you.

Ultimate Tips to Improve Your Sleep While Traveling

Despite all of the difficulties traveling presents to your sleep, there are some things you can do to make sure you get the best rest possible and don’t experience the effects of sleep deprivation.

Preparing for the trip

The key to sleeping well is proper planning, and you should start adjusting to different conditions even before you leave.

• Adjust your sleep and wake cycles to the time zone of your destination. You can do that gradually during the several days before the trip. For this, you can use artificial light and blackout curtains. Make sure that it’s dark when the night is supposed to be in your destination, and turn on the lights when the sun should be out. By doing this, you’ll adjust your circadian rhythms, and your body will regulate the production of hormones responsible for your sleep, especially melatonin.
• Exercise regularly before your trip. Even though you should do this all the time, it is essential to do it before the trip as it will improve your sleep quality as well as boost your productivity and alertness during the journey.
• Maintain a healthy diet. Your diet is important, as much as exercising regularly and sleeping well. Good sleep, a healthy diet and exercising are the foundation for long and healthy life. Watch your caffeine and alcohol intake as they are shown to hurt your rest.
• Plan everything and pack ahead of time. That way, you don’t have to worry about some last minute delay, and you can avoid stress on the day of your trip.
• Go to bed early and make sure to get a good night’s sleep before leaving, so you can be well rested for your trip.

Sleeping better during the trip

There are some tips depending on your transportation, but the general things to remember are:

• • Make yourself comfortable. Wear multiple layers and go for loose clothes. That way you can take of, or put on your sweater and other layers so that you don’t have to depend on the temperature in a vehicle you are traveling in. Make sure to wear some shoes you can easily slip off, and rest your feet during the trip, especially if it’s a long one.
  • Block out all distractions, so bring a sleeping mask in case it is too bright around. Also, don’t forget to use earplugs or noise blocking headphones so that you are not affected by the engine noise, loud conversations or any crying toddlers.
  • Limit your naps. Remember that snoozing for a longer than 30 to 45 minutes can put you in a deep sleep, and it is harder to wake up during this stage. It can also mean additional drowsiness after waking up that you want to avoid. Sleep longer than that only if you know that you are traveling for a considerable amount of hours or the whole night.
  • Drink a lot of water. It is extremely important for those traveling by plane, as the cabin air can often be humid, and make you more prone to dehydration. Proper hydration helps your body function well, and it prevents you from getting sick. Try not to drink alcohol or caffeine, but if you must, limit it to one cup.
  • Bring a travel pillow, and maybe a blanket for extra comfort. They will help you fall asleep faster.
  • Pack a healthy, low sodium snack in case you get hungry. Avoid bringing sugary and snacks that are rich in fats.
  • Take a comfortable position for optimal sleep. You want your spine to be as aligned as possible. Also, don’t cross your legs as this can restrict your blood flow. By positioning yourself comfortably, you’ll let your muscles get the better rest, and it will make you fall asleep faster.
  • Set your watch to the time zone of your destination.

Traveling on a plane

• If it doesn’t interrupt your regular sleep cycle, feel free to snooze during your trip. If you know that you won’t be able to fall asleep, make sure you book a flight that will arrive at your destination in the early evening, so that you can go to bed right away and maintain your sleep pattern.

• Choose a window seat. That way you can lean on the side for more support during your sleep, and you also won’t be woken up by the people passing by to use the restroom.

• If you can afford it, upgrade your seats. Business or first class are ideal, but many airlines also have extra legroom seats for an additional charge. Extra room to stretch and recline your seat is excellent, especially if you are tall and can’t get comfortable in the small spaces.

• If you can’t sit upright, go for a different strategy and lean forward and use the tray table instead.

• Keep your seatbelt visibly buckled, so that the flight attendants don’t wake you up in case you experience any turbulence.

Sleeping in a car

• Recline the seat, and lay as flat as you can. If you can, use the backseat, as it is easier for you to fall asleep, and it’s better for your back.
• Bring the pillows and blankets to experience the full potential of sleeping in a car. Being comfortable is the key.
• Wear sunglasses or a sleeping mask to block out the sun.
• Whenever the driver is taking a break, use that time to stretch your legs and use a restroom.

Sleeping on a train

• As the conductors are often passing by to check the tickets, put them in the visible place so that they don’t wake you up. You can use a holder on the seat in front of you, or wear it around your neck in a luggage tag holder.
• Many trains have sleeper cars, so consider that option, especially if you are traveling overnight. These spaces include privacy, a bed, but they usually come at a higher price

Sleeping on a bus

• Choose the time of your trip, during the less crowded hours. Those are generally during the night and in the early morning. That means more room and fewer distractions around you, allowing you to fall asleep easier.
• It is best to travel during the night, as it will be dark outside, less crowded, and there is less traffic, which all means a smoother ride.

What to do once you’ve reached your destination?

• Take a nap if you’ve come early in the day, but limit it to two hours. Snoozing for longer than that might worsen the effect of jet lag. If you’ve arrived later in the day, wait a bit, then go to sleep in the evening.
• Go out as soon as you wake up the next morning to expose yourself to sunlight, to help adjust your circadian clock.
• Eat well, drink plenty of water and try to stay active and exercise.
• Consider taking a melatonin supplement if you are having a hard time adjusting to the new time zone.

If you are experiencing jet lag, and you haven’t prepared for it upfront, gradually adjust your sleep. One hour every day for every time zone you’ve traveled is usually the best equation. Keep in mind that the direction you are moving also affects how quickly you can adapt. Going west is generally more comfortable than traveling east since it is easier to stay up a little later than having to wake up earlier.

Sleep is an innate, ever-changing process that impacts our physical well-being, psychological health, natural development, and the fluctuation of our condition daily. It’s a given that we spend almost every night of our lives sleeping, but there’s more to it than just seeking comfort and closing our eyes. Although the field of sleep science has seen a surge of new insights after major discoveries in the past years, these advancements don’t fully explain why sleep happens or detail the exact processes involved.

Quantification of sleep is not an easy task – too many variables are involved in inducing and regulating this process, and as far as it lead us already, sleep science is still very much in its infancy. In best attempts to answer as many questions posited when faced with this problem, specialists have come up with a number of theories and models.

In this article, we will explore some of these models one by one, observations about them, as well as some newer and promising work.

A Mathematical Model of the Sleep-Wake Cycle

This model works around the “flip-flop” models previously posited to account for REM/NREM stages of sleep and explores how well the neuronal components in these models fit in the sleep-wake cycle as we know it. It is essentially the biological basis for the two-process model and explains features like the timing of wakefulness and sleep, how deprivation affects this timing, the effects of orexin loss, ultradian rhythms and more.

Two-Process Model of Sleep Regulation

The two-process model is one of the most authoritative sleep posits to date. It describes what happens in one’s body during the 24-hour timespan and why we get sleepy or alert at different stages of the day. The processes in question are the circadian rhythm (also known as process C) and the sleep-wake homeostasis (process S). These two combined regulate our sleep and wake times of a single day.

Circadian rhythms in one’s body are in charge of monitoring other processes and time them to match the external time of day. One such circadian rhythm is meant to synchronize our sleep time with nighttime and our wake time with daytime, triggered by external cues like light levels. In essence, process C is what alerts you to wake up in the morning, keeps you awake throughout the day, and then lets you sleep in the evening.

Homeostatic processes are those in charge of monitoring a specific function in our body in narrow-range. A homeostatic process regulates the blood salinity levels; another one takes care of thermoregulation, and so forth. The sleep-wake homeostasis is responsible for the increasing sleepiness we feel the longer we are awake, making our bodies and minds slower and heavier until we finally go to sleep. This process increases the sleep pressure over the day, but goes into decline when we sleep (specifically in non-REM stages of sleep).

Brought together, these processes overlap and override one another constantly to enable sufficient sleep. In essence, it works like this: the morning, after a bit of sobering up from sleep, is when we are most alert. Process S has just begun the sleep debt build-up which will only go upwards until the next time we sleep. In order to prevent us from succumbing to this pressure, Process C keeps us alert, so that we would stick to the schedule and stay awake until nightfall. With nightfall, our brain will start secreting some sleep-inducing hormones like melatonin, and the sleep-wake homeostasis will finally be in the clear to take over. As we fall asleep, this process will be satiated, releasing the sleep pressure until the moment we wake up, once again alerted by process C, and the whole story repeats from the top.

The two components mentioned in this model function together and can’t be looked at independently. Disrupt one of them, and you automatically have disrupted sleep with common consequences like excessive daytime sleepiness and sleep deprivation after as little as a couple of nights. If continued for a longer timespan, one might develop a disorder. Examples of disorders triggered by environmental or behavioral factors would be the circadian rhythm disorders like jet lag, shift work, delayed or advanced sleep-wake phase disorder and insomnias. This mostly happens when light exposure is insufficient, or one’s internal clock is forcefully opposed to the time of day (like when you switch timezones suddenly).

As it is, the two-process model is a useful tool for the initial outlining of sleep architecture, but its simplistic nature has some shortcomings. Namely, the stages of sleep including 1, 2 and Slow Wave Sleep (SWS) are all molded into “non-REM” besides REM-sleep and aren’t differentiated between one another. This is important because both different stage durations and the frequency of switching between stages of sleep can potentially signal that something isn’t right and might indicate a disorder, sleep-related or otherwise.

Sleep Architecture and the Bayesian Network

Because of the reasons stated above, sleep researchers have decided to go a bit further into sleep mathematics, although while relying on the two-process model as a base. Using the Bayesian network and information based on around 3200 nights of sleep from different sources, researchers were able to lay the ground for a newer, updated model of sleep to come. Before we get into it, we will clarify some terminology and basic sleep structure.

Bayesian network is a statistical model that uses conditional dependency between a set of variables and an outcome, to determine which variable was more likely to cause the outcome and predict future events based on this information. For example, we could have a set of symptoms and predict the likelihood of various diseases or disorders using this network. For our purposes, different sleep stages and their dynamics, as well as factors like one’s body weight, age, sex and external factors like time of day could all be proved to affect sleep using the Bayesian network.

Different sleep stages are as following: stage 1, stage 2 (light stages), Slow Wave Sleep (SWS), Rapid Eye Movement (REM) and Waking After Sleep Onset (WASO). The standard order of these includes stage one proceeding into a cyclic repetition of stage 2, SWS, stage 2 and REM. The first two stages have shown to be mostly consistent in duration for the entire night (meaning, they last the same as the first time they occurred every next time as well), while SWS and REM phases have bigger fluctuations. Typically, SWS will take a larger portion of sleep in the evening or night, while REM will occur and last longer in the early morning hours. During the night, brief moments of WASO will occur somewhere between the other stages.

Doctors and researchers will often take the total time one has spent in each stage during sleep and normalize it into an average in order to compare the stages and measure their proportions during a night’s sleep. This can be beneficial on occasions when multiple patients or groups are examined. However, in an individual, it fails in noting whether some stages re-appeared more times but lasted shorter, or they cycled less but for longer durations. Differentiating between these situations is very important, as fragmented sleep can indicate the possibility of obstructive sleep apnea, for instance. Another issue with this approach is that researchers won’t be able to tell if any single stage was consistent in duration or not. For example, a stage could occur only two or three times during sleep but last equally long each time, or it could occur more times but last for shorter or longer periods in every appearance, with the total sum of time spent in that stage staying the same.

To effectively predict the probability of the next stage transition, its duration, total sleep efficiency, and REM onset, researchers have also considered each individual’s age, sex, sleep latency, and its overall length.

Results were able to establish that both age and sex make a difference in sleep stages transition and duration. The older an individual, the more of their sleep goes into stages 1, 2, and WASO, and less time is spent in SWS. Their quality of sleep was also worse compared to that in younger people. People’s sex only changed the transitioning between various stages, but the difference in other aspects wasn’t significant. Finally, a thorough examination was unable to detect any links between sleep latency, efficiency, and one’s BMI.

In conclusion, this work shows some progress has been made since the two-process model and calls for a new, refitted one. The Bayesian network is worthy of mention as a promising tool for further use in studies, and we can expect to see some exciting discoveries in the future of sleep science.

A lack of sufficient sleep is a common challenge faced by people around the globe. For optimal health and functioning, adults are advised to aim for 7 to 8 hours of sleep per night. Furthermore, experts suggest that teenagers require more sleep to function at their best, approximately 8.5 to 10 hours nightly, with younger teens needing closer to 10 hours. Despite these recommendations, research indicates that both adults and teens usually receive at least one hour less sleep than what is advised. This issue is especially pronounced in teenagers, who might get around 7.5 to 8.5 hours of sleep during less hectic times, but see their sleep decrease to about 6.5 hours or even less throughout the school week.

This lack of sleep occurs due to many factors, including stress, high academic demands, an abundance of homework, the early school start opposing to the naturally later circadian sleep rhythm common in adolescents, and the list goes on. Note that adolescents need a lot of socialization during this developmental phase as well, but often get a very small time window (if any) to engage in such activities outside of school, swamped with responsibilities as they are. The ultimatum is created between sleep and socialization almost daily, and many adolescents will choose the latter, leading to poor sleep hygiene and many potential issues.

This decision is only reinforced by the surge of technology over the last decade and a half. With the constant availability and connectivity of modern devices to everybody and every place, it is easier than ever to fill that gap by casually chatting with a friend or falling down a YouTube rabbit hole from the comfort of our own homes, even beds. At this point, it is safe to assume that the thought of the potentially harmful effect of the increasingly prolonged screen time has crossed most people’s minds; to find out the legitimacy behind such thoughts and the extent of harm inflicted by such behavior, keep reading.

Smartphone and Sleep: the Scroll Culture

Many people nowadays take their phones with them wherever they go, at all times. We check up on social media feed, snap photos of our meals, text on-and-off, scroll through the news and look for directions to places we haven’t been to before. Immediately from the alarm ring in the morning, smartphones are often the first thing we reach for when we wake up and the last thing we “do” before we fall asleep. In fact, research shows that around 71% of people keep their phones within arm’s reach or in the bed at nighttime, regularly falling asleep with the phone in one hand. Even more staggering is that between 40-47% of adolescents wake up shortly after falling asleep to answer a text or call and are shown to be sensitive to their phones’ notification sounds the same way mothers are sensitive to their babies’ cry.

When you use your cell phone as an alarm clock, it makes sense that you would want to keep it close by, but the problem occurs with the temptation to check up on social media one last time before sleep – having your phone near you means you are most unlikely to resist that temptation. What starts as innocent surfing may soon wake you up completely as you read something that upsets you or engage in a conversation with a friend. Before long, instead of relaxing you and preparing for bed, this activity will stimulate you and effectively postpone sleep latency as a result. Many studies have examined the impact of such behavior on sleep and were unsurprisingly able to find a number of issues stemming from it. Bedtime use of smartphones in adolescents and adults alike was linked with lower sleep quality and later sleep onset, directly increasing risks for anxiety, depression and causing excessive daytime sleepiness. Using phones after turning off all other lights was linked with four different types of sleep disturbances, most prominently insomnia, and waking up to answer calls and texts resulted in up to an hour less of total sleep time.

Furthermore, hypervigilant response to the notification bell and the pathological usage of smartphones point to a behavioral addiction, especially in people akin to similar problematic behaviors. This doesn’t only negatively impact sleep. Spending an excessive amount of time in front of the screen puts one at a greater risk of many mental and other health conditions, lowers focus and the overall quality of life. This effect varies between the different ways one might use their phone, but general practitioners should be aware of this phenomenon and make sure to check on their patients’ technology use. Scrolling in particular delays one’s response time and has an addictive, rewarding effect on our brains: as we come across a piece of information that interests us, our brains receive the feedback that the action has paid off and reinforce such behavior. Over time, the overstimulation of this technology misuse negatively impacts various aspects of our lives, displayed in worsened academic performance, lower learning ability, shorter focus span, and heightened irritability when such an activity is unavailable. The full range of consequences of the excessive screen use on a global level is yet to be fully encompassed. But besides their purpose as distractions (as well as tools), screens, or screen lights to be precise, have a spectrum of adverse effects of their own when it comes to our health.

Effect of Blue Light on Sleep

Most of the technology we currently use emits blue light, known for having the shortest wavelength in the visible range, between 400-495 nm. This means that its intensity easily pierces through our retinas’ photoreceptors and it has the greatest ability to set and reset human circadian rhythms. Circadian rhythms are processes in our body that have control over the timing when some other processes will take place during the period of 24 hours. Our core body temperature fluctuations and feeding times are both controlled by two such rhythms, and so is sleep. Based on light exposure we receive during the day, our circadian rhythm makes sure that we are awake when it’s daytime and sleep during the night. Accumulating evidence suggests that artificial blue light as emitted by technology may disrupt the natural functioning of the circadian rhythm, and has a negative effect on various physiological processes when exposure is high and at a later time of day.

Most of our exposure to this light comes from flatscreen TVs, tablets, computers, and smartphones, along with LED (light emitting diode) lights. The use of self-luminous devices in the evening has been proven to suppress one’s natural melatonin secretion and thus prolong their time awake, over time potentially causing insomnia or some other sleep-related disorder. A UK-based study published in January 2019 investigated the subject in the population group of 6616 young adolescents. Two-thirds of them reported using technology at nighttime which was associated with a higher chance of later sleep onset and an insufficient amount of sleep. Those who used phones or watched television with another light on at bedtime had a poorer overall efficiency of sleep than adolescents who didn’t use technology at this time, while those who used some of these devices in darkness had the worst sleep quality of the group, and an insufficient duration of sleep. Thankfully, many newer models of tablets, computers, and smartphones now come with a blue light filter which helps reduce the damaging effects explained above.

Contrary to what you may be thinking by now, blue light isn’t always harmful. It is just its intensive use and bad timing that make it such an issue. In fact, when turned around and properly timed, blue light can be used to our advantage, too. Phototherapy, or light therapy, is one such use of blue (in combination with white) light to treat the very disorders its evening misuse can cause. It works by suppressing melatonin production and cueing for the circadian rhythm to alert one’s body, thus promoting a healthy, orderly cycle. It is usually used in the morning to help patients wake up and maintain their alertness. Though, in cases like the advanced sleep-wake phase disorder, which causes one to fall asleep and wake up hours earlier than average, it can be used later during the day as well, to prolong wakefulness if necessary. Light therapy is used to treat a seasonal affective disorder, jet lag, and many other sleep disorders, often in combination with other treatment methods like sleep restriction therapy.

Tips for Smart Technology Use to Promote Healthy Sleep

Smartphones are undoubtedly able to serve many useful purposes in our lives. As long as we know how to keep a certain distance, we can maintain a healthy relationship with them and not at the cost of sleep. While limiting screen time doesn’t sound appealing at first, the benefits can be significant. Below are some tips to help motivate you in such attempts.

• Leave your phone out of reach. Your bed should be just for sleeping. If you use it a lot during the day, your mind will begin to associate it with different activities – internet surfing included. As a result, when you do get into bed to sleep, it will take you longer to do so, as your brain won’t automatically connect the dots. In order to maintain the association as it should be, it is vital that you keep your phone away. Leaving it in another room would be ideal, but if you have to use it as an alarm, keep it at the opposite side of the bedroom, where you will be sure not to reach it unless leaving the bed. This way, you will not only remove a major distraction and promote faster sleep latency but also ensure getting up when the alarm rings without being tempted to hit that snooze button until noon.
• Stop using your phone at least one hour before bedtime. The longer you keep scrolling, the more likely you are to find a distraction, trick your circadian rhythm into alerting your body awake and effectively procrastinate sleep. Instead, use this time to practice a relaxing, sleep-promoting routine. Make sure you change out of your daytime clothes and into the PJs, take a bath, remove makeup, etc. Whatever calming, soothing activity you know you won’t forget or feel obliged to do – add it here, and make it an evening ritual. Sleep length and quality are sure to improve, as you won’t waste time on your phone or have racing thoughts when you should be sleeping.
• Don’t check your phone first thing in the morning. If you managed to follow the first two tips, good job! But that doesn’t earn you a long Facebook session as soon as open your eyes. Similarly to pre-bedtime, using the phone in the morning before you’ve had a chance to wake up properly will waste your daily alertness peak, especially if done while still in bed. Such activity will make you lazier to get up in the first place and set you up for a very slow day. You are likely to experience a wave of numbness or sleepiness after even a quick browse, and the artificial light immediately after waking up can be harmful for your eyes. To avoid this, wait out a while longer without the phone – do what else you usually would, brush your teeth, eat breakfast, get ready for school or work. When you have successfully shrugged off the sleep inertia, you are in the clear to pick up the smartphone. Remember, a good sleep routine won’t make a big difference if the whole day leading up to that moment was unhealthy.
• Periodically “forget” your phone in a different room while going about your day. Much like you did before bedtime, keeping your phone out of sight will remove your chances of accidentally getting engaged in a random topic online and forgetting about real-life responsibilities that need be done. Even simply turning off the internet connection or the notification bell during a study or work session will aid your focus and save valuable time you would have perhaps wasted otherwise. In effect, you will decrease the chances of an unticked to-do list and piles of undone work awaiting you in the evening when you should be winding down for sleep.

A considerable number of people, particularly those who have served, with experience in the military, continuously struggle with sleep-related issues. Recent research shows that more than 75% of veterans suffer from symptoms linked to different sleep disorders. This percentage is even higher among individuals diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, highlighting a noteworthy occurrence.

Many Americans are dealing with sleep disorders which occur as a consequence of their lifestyle or career choices, for example, working in shifts is particularly bad for our sleep, but some professions are more stressful and come with higher risks and responsibility. Military-related jobs are recognized as professions that have a profoundly negative impact on sleep since those consequences on sleep usually remain or get even worse when people retire from the military.

By the term veteran federal law and military service consider any person who served for any length of time in any branch of military service (“Any, any, any”), for example, navy, army, marines or air force.

In 2015. the Department of Defense performed a study which showed that around 33% of active service members feel severe fatigue at least three times per week due to the lack of sleep, while 51% of them reported that they feel how sleep loss is hindering their daily functioning and responsibilities. Service members normally sleep for six or fewer hours per night, which is below the optimal recommendation of eight hours, they are also often deployed, exposed to traumatic events and injuries. This specific lifestyle is hard to keep up with, and there is not much time for rest, so people would expect that once they retire they should be able to be carefree and get enough sleep, but then as the aftermath, they have to deal with sleep difficulties.

What Keeps Veterans Up At Night?

Military service corps are highly valued for their sacrifices since they often find themselves in difficult and dangerous situations far away from home in foreign countries that are in a war. Those who go through these war-torn countries are often facing many psychological and emotional struggles since the things that they have seen and survived haunts them afterward. Being exposed to such things for months or years, impacts each person in a different way, but sleep-related problems are common for almost all of them. Getting insufficient sleep due to the unique nature of their job in combination with stress and life-or-death decision making keeps our veterans up for many nights. We have all spent a few nights up overthinking some minor things that happened to us, so it is not hard to imagine how challenging can it be to fall asleep after spending a part of your life as a military service member. Here are some of the most common causes of why our veterans are having troubles with sleep.

• Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) – many veterans that have been through some traumatic events experience mental health problem called PTSD. Upsetting memories, combats, emotional and physical stress, injuries, anxiety, etc. all provide veterans with the feeling of fear or life treating danger that they cannot control. It is normal to have some symptoms of it right after the event, but if they continue to last over a month it is considered as PTSD, also, sometimes the symptoms can show off later on. Trauma-focused psychotherapy is very beneficial as it has been proved that 53 out of 100 people successfully got rid of PTSD symptoms thanks to it, another way of successful treatment includes medications.
• Pain – those who have been physically injured or go home with them have problems with pain management. Sometimes even after the injury has been treated neurological pain in ghost limbs occurs or severe headaches start. Other, long-term painful conditions such as arthritis are also common among veterans and hinder their sleep, and the term painsomnia refers to those painful chronic conditions that are impacting sleep negatively.
• Traumatic brain injury (TBI) – bumps, jolts or any other head injuries may cause disruption of the brain’s normal function. Types of these injuries can vary from smaller contusions to severe ones which can leave long-term consequences on mental health, memory, and many other aspects, depending on the brain damage. Chronic pain often remains a problem for months or even years, after the primary injury is healed.
• Tinnitus – this is a perception of ringing, hissing or buzzing noise in the ear and head. Many soldiers that have been exposed to gunfire, mine explosions or missiles noise, are struggling with a chronic problem of so-called ringing ears. The loudness and intensity can vary, but it is usually the worst when there is little or no background noise because then we can be fully aware of it, for example, during the night when we are trying to fall asleep. Besides sleep, it affects concentration, work, and normal daily functioning, it can cause stress, but it is not a cause of hearing loss.
• Substance abuse – since military-related jobs are so stressful many try to cope their daily issues with some legal and illegal substances. Legal ones such as cigarettes, alcohol, energy drinks have a negative impact on their life quality, prescribed drugs for alertness, pain management or sleeping can also have side effects, particularly when they are abused. Then there are many illegal ones that we all hope service members are not using, but in reality that happens too, a lot of them struggles when dealing with pressure and seeks their way out through drugs such as marijuana, heroin or other psychoactive substances.
• Substance withdrawal – some of them continue with their addictive habits once they return home, while others try getting into rehab and treating their addiction properly. This process is never an easy one, and it can be a temporary cause of many sleepless nights.

Veterans Sleep Disorders

As we mentioned before, while they are working as active service members on duty, many are unable to maintain a healthy sleep routine, they are chronically sleep deprived, fatigued, which impacts their performance and overall health. They develop sleep disorders even before they retire, but since they can be so hard to treat, many get used to living with them. But, due to the many stressful and traumatic things that they have survived, it is essential that sleep disorders among veterans are not taken for granted, they need to be treated properly because they can often lead to depression and suicide. Unfortunately, the suicide rate is high among the veterans, according to the data collected between 1979. and 2016. when the Department of the US Veterans Affairs analyzed the records of 55 millions of veterans, it shows off that on average 20 veterans die each day due to suicide. Sleep disorders are, of course, not the main and only cause of it, but they can contribute significantly.

• Insomnia – this is the most common sleep problem among the members of the military. Many things that are specific to military lifestyle can be the cause of it, for example, deployment, stress, sleeping on the ground or in the crowded rooms, sleeping with a bright light on, traumas, loud surroundings including gunfire and missile noise, combats, and so on. Returning home and trying to re-adjust to civilian life can also be a potential cause of insomnia. Deployment-related insomnia is a unique type of sleeplessness, common among new troops after the deployment. They are in fear of fire and combats, with little or no time to get used to new surroundings and their sleep-wake schedules are usually irregular since day one. When this type of insomnia is not treated on time, and properly, it can be the cause of depression, PTSD, and suicide.
• Nightmares and night terrors – more than a half of combat veterans have nightmares several times during the week, and they come to their sleep as flashbacks of unpleasant and traumatic things that they have experienced while they were serving abroad. Night terrors are also common, those terrifying and anxious moments in the middle of the night are scary not only for the person who is going through it but also for their partners, families or roommates. The difference between night terrors and nightmares is that we usually remember our nightmares on the day after, but although during an episode of a night terror a people can seem fully awake and inconsolable, they will hardly have any memory about it on the next day. Althouhg military branches are trying to reduce the stigma for seeking adequate help for mental health care, many veterans and service members still deny their underlying problems, they would rather seek help for insomnia only without trying to cope with underlying trauma first.
• Sleep apnea – veterans with sleep apnea are dealing with snoring, and occasional breathing stops during the night. Usual causes of sleep apnea can be age, obesity, or any health-related problem, but veterans experience it mainly because of some neurological or physical damage that happened to them during their service, or as a result of substance abuse.
• Restless leg syndrome – many veterans have reported having restless leg syndrome, but for them, it is usually diagnosed as a neurological dysfunction which falls off under the spectrum of PTSD. In some severe cases, this can be a contributor to disability. RLS disrupts sleep because one leg develops those uncomfortable sensations, followed by an uncontrolled urge to move. The leg gets itchy or jumpy, and it easily awakes the person or prevents him/her from falling asleep. The best way to calm down the muscles is a massage or a warm shower, but there are also medications that can help with keeping these unpleasant sensations under control.
• Sleep paralysis – this is a somewhat strange condition which usually occurs either when we are falling asleep or when we are waking up. People who are experiencing sleep paralysis are being fully awake, but at the same time, they are unable to move their arms or legs, which causes panic. Researches show that around 85% of people with PTSD have experienced sleep paralysis.
• REM behavior disorder – also known as RBD, refers to the changes that happen while we are at the REM stage of sleep in which dreams usually occur. During the REM phase, our brain shuts down all muscle functions, those groups of muscles are in a mode of temporary paralysis, all except the diaphragm which continues to work and support breathing. People who experience RBD start acting out the things they are dreaming about because their muscles fail to stay temporarily paralyzed. It can be potentially dangerous for people with this disorder but also for everyone sleeping around them. Small studies in veterans have shown that more than 50% of those with PTSD will probably experience RBD sooner or later. For veterans, these vivid nightmares are mainly physical manifestations of inner traumas or flashbacks of some events.
• Enuresis – also known as urinary incontinence or bedwetting, among adults it is mostly connected to diabetes, untreated sleep apnea, or other medical conditions, but veterans usually have it for other reasons. It has been related to the long-lasting psychiatric and physiological stress that many encounter during the service, and it is more common among the female population of personnel.
• Circadian rhythm disorders – hectic work schedules in the military can either exacerbate or stem our natural sleep-wake cycle. Normal sleep-wake cycle is usually aligned with the shift of daytime and nighttime, but some jobs have such work schedules that neglect these things. For example, the notorious Panama schedule, which is still used in some units, requires from workers that every 2-3 days they go on and off duty, switching their shifts from daily to night ones every four weeks. Shift working is more present during deployments, and those who have been working night shifts have problems with establishing a normal sleep pattern once they return home.

Trying to fall asleep with a rumbling stomach is invariably an unpleasant experience. Whether it’s from dieting or past childhood punishments of going to bed without dinner, the torment of hunger is something many are familiar with. Eating is an essential need for our survival, so when this requirement isn’t satisfied, it causes continuous distress to both our physical and mental well-being until we can feed ourselves again.

We mentioned the notorious method of punishment for kids which implies cutting off their last meal of the day since the abridgment of the food is considered as something difficult and challenging, it may be hard to believe that someone would do to that to himself intentionally, yet people do so.

For people who belong to various religious groups, fasting is more than a diet, it is a way of testing themselves, their will and faith, but it is also a way of purification. In recent years fasting got its five minutes of attention from people who are trying to do it from various non-religious reasons. Some believe that it will help them lose weight; others do it to detoxify their body or try out a new lifestyle. Regardless of the reasons, fasting is gaining more and more attention, which means that researchers are trying to find more about its pros and cons, the benefits and side effects. One of those mysteries is how fasting impacts sleep, is starvation a potential cause of sleep problems, or can it be beneficial in the long run.

What is Fasting?

Fasting is a rigorous regime of eating which can exclude all or some sorts of food and drinks during a certain period, and it is usually done as a way of religious observance. Many religious groups all over the world practice some form of fasting, some of them are Islam, Hinduism, Judaism, Orthodox Christians, and many others. One thing is common for all of them – they all believe that fasting is much more than just abstaining from food and drink, it strengthens their power of will, control, and behavior.

Water fasting, for example, refers to willing abstinence from all drinks and food, except for water, tea, and black coffee. Dry fasting or absolute fasting is abstinence from all kinds of food and drinks for a certain period. The most common and broad term is intermittent fasting which stands for various eating diets that cycle between periods of non-fasting and fasting. Intermittent fasting is a scientific term for Ramadan fast which lasts for 29 to 30 days in Islam.

Currently, many researchers are trying to prove if intermittent fasting can help people lose their weight and become a healthier option instead of permanent calorie restriction. When it comes to intermittent fasting, there are two main types of it:

• Whole-day fasting refers to one-day fasts, and there are two forms of it. The first one is ADF, which stands for alternate day fasting, and it works in a way that the first 24 hours are for fasting, and then the next 24 hours are a non-fasting period. The second form is ADMF, alternate day modified fasting, also known as 5:2 diet, which consists of five non-fasting days and two days of fast in a week. Those two fasting days can be either modified or total fasting, but both options allow a daily intake of 500 to 600 calories.
• Time-restricted feeding (TRF) means that eating is “allowed” only during a certain number of hours in a day. The most common form of it consists out of 16 hours meant for fasting, and 8 hours during which eating is recommended, on the same scheduled time each day. The strict form of it has 23 hours of fasting, and only one hour for one meal per day, while a more liberal form would be the one with 12 hours of fasting and 12 non-fasting hours.

Sleeping During Fasting

Just like with any other new routine that you are trying to establish, it takes time to adjust to it and actually see its benefits. Fasting can be extremely difficult and challenging if you are new to it, most people mention only the positive impact of it but forget to mention the struggles they experience on the road.

It is important to mention, and expect, that you would not be getting much sleep at the very beginning. Fasting can cause temporary sleep-related problems, but they are usually mild and go away quickly once your body adapts to the new regime. It usually takes as little as three nights to get back on track with proper sleeping as that is when our body slowly starts to adjust to fasting.

During the fast, you would not get much sleep but not due to starvation but because you will be full of energy. Sleep decreases during the fast, but that is not followed by the usual symptoms of sleep deprivation such as fatigue. On the contrary, you will wake up more easily, feeling energetic, and for some reason, you will feel better about yourself. So if you are thinking about starting a fast for the first time, do it during the weekend or when you do not have many important things to do since first few days and nights can be rough.

While we are abstaining from food, our body produces orexin which is a neurotransmitter in charge of keeping us alert, craving food, increasing body temperature and metabolism boosts. Studies performed on mice show that lower level of orexin can be connected to obesity regardless of the calorie intake, while a higher level of orexin can cause issues with falling asleep due to higher alertness. Lowering the level of orexin will make us feel more tired, which we can achieve by eating junk food. If you ever wondered why you suddenly feel tired after eating processed food, the answer is in glucose. Once glucose is released into our blood system, it smothers the flow of orexin which leads to fatigue and energy decrease.

Another hormone essential to fasting is adrenaline which keeps us awake and is also known for decreasing the appetite and causing weight loss by burning fat. Once we start to fast, out body stops working on energy that it gets from food which is carbs, and starts working on energy from fat called ketones, this phase is known as keto-adaptation, and it lasts for 2-3 days during which the adrenaline is released. If you have been relying on food as a source of energy for your entire life, sudden loss of it will lead to energy boost as a way of help to find and get more food. Once you go through this period your food cravings will decrease, and your sleep should be back to normal.

So it turns out that when we are fasting, we are able to function normally even without the optimal 8 hours of sleep per night thanks to higher levels of adrenalin and orexin. Our body will also need less recovery time as there is little or no food to digest, so it would not be wasting much energy on digestion. Many people say that they experience mental clarity during the fast, that is because our brain works more efficiently due to the production of a protein called brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF).

How to Sleep Well During Fast?

Prepare yourself for an adjustment period and keep in mind your goal, it will be challenging, but it is not impossible, therefore here are some brief tips that can enhance your sleep during the days of fast.

• Hydration – it is essential to stay well hydrated during the fast. Drinking plenty of water during the day will alleviate starvation and food cravings, but it will also help with your mood and mental state. Dehydration can only make things worse and be another issue that will keep you awake at night.
• Listen to your body – although there are many kinds of research and studies that tell us what to expect, you can never be fully prepared since our bodies respond individually and have different sleep needs. To make this eating strategy work for you, you might need to customize it and make it more suitable for your needs.
• Mindfulness – a lot of people reported that they have become more mindful due to fasting. Practicing mindfulness through breathing exercises and meditation can also be a good way of preparation for the fast, or help to cope with ongoing food cravings and diet.
• Make your meals count – your body will accept and adjust to the new eating regime within a few days, and you would not feel the urge to overeat during the non-fasting periods. To really experience all the benefits of fasting, you need to eat healthily, and on time during the non-fasting days. It means that you need to limit the intake of sugar and sugary foods and eat food full of fibers, fruits, and vegetables, fish, nuts, etc. Eating well will pave the road to better sleep quality.
• Binaural beats – two different tones are played in each ear via headphones, they increase the delta brainwaves which are usually connected to deep sleep, hence they will help you fall asleep quicker.

Intermittent Fasting Benefits

During recent years, intermittent fasting became popular even outside of its religious boundaries, and people started practicing it from various reasons. Many books and tv shows have been based on the 5:2 diet regime, which contributed to the growing number of people who fast.

It’s still unclear if fasting can help with weight loss, but studies have shown fasting has some health-related benefits. Studies have reported that there is a significant improvement in blood pressure, insulin sensitivity and level of cholesterol after intermittent fasting. Also, it lowers the risk of diabetes and coronary diseases, while fasting for more than two days can completely refresh and restart our immune system by regenerating new cells and clearing out the old ones. While we are starving, our body is trying to save energy, and it does that by recycling the old or damaged immune cells that are no longer needed.

Since food is banned during most fasts, our body is not getting any energy from it, instead, it has to dip into stored glucose found in muscles and liver. This process usually begins around eight hours after the last meal. After our body uses all the stored glucose, it starts burning fat as a way of creating new energy, which can result in weight loss. Another thing that also occurs during fasting is the process of detoxification because all the toxins that are stored in body fat are being dissolved and removed from the body. After fasting for a few days, our blood produces more endorphins, which is known as a happy hormone, so it can lead to a more positive mental well being.

Side Effects of Fasting

Fasting is not easy, and it is not for everyone, so we recommend consulting with your GP before starting with it. As there are some positive aspects of it, there are also negative ones, and many health risks have been related to fasting.

Once people who are used to having regular meals such as breakfast, lunch, dinner on a daily basis start to fast, besides hunger, they can experience stress, anxiety, headaches, which can all disrupt their sleep.

When fasting, our body is not getting enough fluid from the food, and that’s why many people experience dehydration. Another potential concern is heartburn. Food restrictions cause a reduction in stomach acid which usually destroys bacteria and digests food. Even when we think about the food or smell it during the fast, it tricks our brain to signal the stomach to produce more acid, causing heartburn.

While many advocate the idea that fasting can be related to weight loss, some people claim that fasting should not be used for those purposes. Fasting can result in quick loss of fluid, but not in a quick loss of weight because as soon as you start eating normal again, those pounds will come back. Some researchers believe that fasting can pull people away from healthy eating habits and trigger some eating disorders.

The consequences of addiction on a person’s life can be devastating. Anyone who has personally gone through addiction or seen its effects on someone close knows about its harmful impact. It touches all parts of a person’s existence, even affecting their sleep. People battling addiction are 5 to 10 times more likely to suffer from sleep disorders and various sleep-related problems.

Many people that have consumed alcohol or drugs as a way to help them sleep or fight insomnia have developed an addiction. Even if the person didn’t have sleep problems before becoming addicted, consuming and abusing these substances for an extended period of time will change your sleep architecture and disrupt your sleep quality. When people rely on drugs and alcohol to go through the day, soon they will not be able to function or fall asleep without it. Unfortunately, things only get worse with recovery, as sleep problems are one of the long-lasting consequences of detox. However, there is some hope because addiction is treatable, and with better sleep, the risk of relapse is lower.

Addictions Interfering with Sleep

Addictions that interfere with sleep include:

Alcohol

Alcohol is considered a depressant, but people mistakenly believe that it’s a good sleep aid. Individuals who drink alcohol before sleep have a higher chance of bedwetting, snoring, sleep apnea, and nightmares. Alcohol causes you to spend less time in REM sleep, which is the sleep stage in which we dream, process everything that we learned during the day, and consolidate our memories. Without this sleep stage, our mental and cognitive performances, as well as our productivity deteriorates. Alcohol users can experience daytime sleepiness, awakening during the night, abnormal sleep quality and insomnia. Insomnia is the most prevalent issue that alcoholics have after they quit drinking.

It can also affect your core body temperature, which also helps to regulate sleep. Your body temperature decreases during the night which causes you to feel drowsy while your brain releases melatonin. When you wake up in the morning, the temperature of your body rises to make you feel awake and alert during the day.

Marijuana

Similar to alcohol, marijuana is also a substance used to help people fall asleep. The dependence of marijuana is the same as any other substance abuse disorder. Even though it doesn’t cause early waking, it still interferes with sleep, and decreases the amount of REM sleep a person gets.

Cocaine, hallucinogens, amphetamines, and MDMA

Cocaine, hallucinogens, amphetamines, and MDMA are stimulants that act as energizing drugs that easily interfere with sleep. By consuming these, people get addicted to the high levels of energy they get when the dopamine floods their brain. While the energy levels are high, they will have a lot of troubles insomnia.

Cocaine has a significant impact on the limbic system of the brain, known for regulating motivation and pleasure. The short-term effects have an immediate impact on the buildup of dopamine that increases euphoria, which is the reason for repeated consumption. Cocaine also increases wakefulness and disrupts REM sleep, so withdrawal can also result in interrupted sleep and bad dreams.

Even a low dose of cocaine can affect your REM sleep, the same way a small amount of alcohol can. And chronic use of ecstasy or cocaine can reduce REM sleep, cause sleep deprivation and impact cognitive performance during the day.

MDMA impacts the brain and sleep by gradually taking away the serotonin levels in the brain. Serotonin has a significant part in the process of melatonin production, and ecstasy users show symptoms of sleep deprivation much sooner than those who consume other types of drugs. These individuals also have many problems with the cognitive performance of the brain.

Amphetamines stimulate the central nervous system, and they can even be used to treat certain medical issues like attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or even depression. But people can develop a psychological amphetamine dependence. And amphetamine consumption can increase the time spent in REM sleep.

Hallucinogen is a term used for a group of drugs that can affect and ultimately alter one’s perception resulting in seeing images and feeling sensations that are not real. Similar to MDMA, hallucinogens interfere with serotonin levels of the brain. Because of that, sleep and other major bodily functions are affected by hallucinogens, causing many sleep problems, and increasing the risk of developing many sleep disorders.

Opioids

Our bodies cannot handle intense levels of pain on our own, so opioids like hydrocodone, oxycodone, and methadone are available to help us. The drugs help people that have severe or chronic pain (from cancer, surgery, or other health procedures and issues). Opioids attach themselves to the dopamine receptors located in your brain, and they allow your brain to handle pain better. But, when abused or not used properly, they create a similar euphoric effect that cocaine has. The same as other addictions, opioid abusers spend less time in REM sleep. The REM and deep sleep are split in half. During these sleep stages, your body repairs and restores the muscles and body tissue.

Sleep medication

Similar to opioids, prescription sleep medications are easy to get addicted to. They are a legal form of medication people use, so they seem safe, even though it is not completely true. Most of these drugs were not made for long-term use, and people develop addictions quick after increased consumption. The more they take, the more likely they are going to have sleep troubles.

Behavioral Addictions

Behavioral addictions such as gambling don’t create devastating physical effects like drugs do, but they can interfere with sleep by worsening one’s mental and emotional health. Gamblers with addictions have an increased risk for mood disorders and anxiety that often cause insomnia and sleep disorders. And the worse the sleep, the worse the addiction.

Addiction-Related Sleep Disorders

Apart from the devastating effects on sleep, many addictions are linked to certain sleep disorders. Many people use alcohol, drugs, and other substances as help for their sleep problems, but they do not realize that these substances exacerbate existing sleep problems and often create new ones. Sleep problems caused by addiction are called substance-induced sleep disorders.

Chronic insomnia is a very common symptom of both addiction and recovery for all kinds of substance abuse. Hypersomnia or excessive daytime sleepiness often coexists with insomnia.

Parasomnias is the term used for abnormal sleep behaviors. Among these sleep behaviors are sleepwalking and night terrors. People prone to hallucinogen and marijuana abuse frequently experience parasomnias, especially nightmares.

Sleep apnea is a sleep disorder that causes a person to stop breathing for a short period of time. Depending on the type, it can be caused by a relaxation of the throat muscles or by a miscommunication of certain centers in the brain. Both of these causes can happen as a result of alcohol and opioid abuse. Over half of the people that have some form of substance abuse and addiction experience sleep apnea.

Restless legs syndrome happens when people have an uncomfortable sensation in their lower limbs that causes them to move it in order to get relief. The most common cases of it happening is when the individual is lying down. The person has a constant need to move the legs to relieve the sensation. This situation makes it difficult to fall asleep. Restless legs syndrome affects a third of addicts and is most common in opioid addicts.

Each of these issues contributes to sleep deprivation that increases the need for substance consumption. Among the symptoms of sleep deprivation are poor decision-making, difficulty focusing and memorizing, minimized reaction time, emotional volatility. Your risk of heart disease, cancer, and diabetes also increases.

Sleep Problems During Addiction Recovery

The early stages of detox are difficult for all types of addiction. In the first few days or weeks, people experience uncomfortable physical symptoms like headaches, fevers, vomiting, and tremors. Along with that, they experience emotional symptoms like anxiety, depression, irritability, and poor mood.

The symptoms are individual, depending on the person, and the severity of the addiction. People that have withdrawal from sleep medication can have seizures, while alcoholics can have delirium tremens (DTs) – a group of symptoms that involve an increased heart rate, hallucinations, and heavy sweating. Because there are no general symptoms, it is essential to seek medical aid and guidance for recovery. People with opioid and sleep medication addictions need to go slower with their dosage to decrease the severity of withdrawal symptoms and the risk of relapse. After the initial period, the physical symptoms will decrease and disappear. Any remaining symptoms will gradually diminish over time.

Insomnia during detox

Insomnia is difficult to handle even when you are not in detox, let alone mixed with other withdrawal symptoms. It is so challenging that people turn to relapse, as they used sedative drugs and alcohol to treat it before recovery.

Many of the drugs we already mentioned can interfere with your dopamine and serotonin production in the brain, which creates many problems. In the first few weeks of withdrawal, your brain needs to stabilize to the normal level, and physical pain and negative emotions are harder to handle. While all this is happening, you have poor and minimal amounts of sleep that happen because of detox-induced insomnia. The sleep deprivation you have reduces the pain tolerance and causes you to lash out and be irritable towards others quickly.

From everything listed, you can assume that insomnia is the biggest reason for relapsing. The risk is even higher for those who have a sleep disorder. It is vital to treat insomnia to improve sleep quality and reduce the symptoms of withdrawal.

Few things can match the stress encountered by new parents. Looking after a newborn is a formidable task, mainly because you’re often dealing with unclear and confusing situations that leave you wondering about the right moves to make. It’s essential to ensure your baby consumes the healthiest foods, to provide ceaseless comfort, and to meticulously oversee every aspect of their care. A lack of experience can lead to many mistakes, some of which might have a significant impact on your child’s well-being. Although consulting a pediatrician is always a smart move, exploring various parenting methods and safety guidelines online can also be very helpful.

Co-sleeping is a topic many parents approach with caution and fear, as it comes with potential downsides that have to be worked around. However, when done correctly, it offers very desirable benefits that help your child develop properly, and stay healthy. In this article, we will examine co-sleeping as a whole and offer advice on how you can organize your sleeping environment to support your child’s development, which also helps parents minimize stress and get better rest themselves. Let’s get right into it.

What Is Co-Sleeping and How Does It Work?

Co-sleeping is the act of sharing your bedroom (or your bed itself) with your child. The primary purpose of co-sleeping is to allow the child and parent (typically the mother) to feel each other’s presence in the room, which allows both of them to sleep easier (especially the child). It is a practice as old as time and considered one of the earliest parenting techniques since our inception as a species. One of the main reasons to implement co-sleeping is that it lets the parents respond to the child’s needs almost instantly, which brings a lot of health and safety benefits and reduces stress.

Despite being known under one term, there are two main categories of co-sleeping you should consider as options – bed-sharing and room-sharing. Both of those are self-explanatory – bed-sharing is an approach where your baby sleeps in the same bed as one or both parents. Room-sharing gives all of them more space to work with, without sacrificing the close connection between the parents and the child.

While the trend has had its ups and downs throughout history, co-sleeping is increasingly popular in the West, with around 24% of parents reporting that they bed-share most of the time or all the time. This is a quadruple increase from the period around 1993, where the percentage of bed-sharing parents was at a measly 6%.

Co-Sleeping and Safety

Due to how fragile babies are, child safety is the number one concern for all parents, experienced or otherwise. The first question a parent will ask when you explain co-sleeping should be (and often is) “How safe is co-sleeping?” There could be a whole host of potential reasons why you would decide to bed-share or room-share, but let’s look at expert opinions – the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) claims that parents should room-share (but not bed-share) with their children for at least the first six months, if not a full year or more. This is consistent with what pediatricians from New Zealand, Canada, the United Kingdom, and other countries say. Co-sleeping as a whole lets the mother breastfeed the child in a moment’s notice, and both parents can generally access the baby to help it fulfill its needs very quickly and easily.

Bed-sharing, while useful in its own right, is often advised against due to an increased risk of overheating, suffocation or entanglement. Still, it can help in situations where the baby is being fed, and the parent is afraid they’ll fall asleep while they’re in a chair or on another similar piece of furniture. Every risk associated with bed-sharing is that much more dangerous when there’s less space to work with, so it’s recommended for the parent to move to a bed if they aren’t sure they can stay awake.

The Risk of SIDS

Sudden infant death syndrome (or SIDS) is one of the biggest fears of every parent during the period where it presents a threat (the first twelve months of your baby’s life). The biggest problem is that SIDS is unexplained, and researchers are still trying to pinpoint potential causes. SIDS typically occurs during the night, which has led experts to theorize that sleep arrangements such as bedding and co-sleeping could play an important role. Bed-sharing is put in a tough spot here because SIDS is one of the main risks associated with this practice, along with entrapment, suffocation and overheating. It is believed that co-sleeping reduces the risk of SIDS, but only if the baby is on a separate sleeping surface, such as a baby crib.

The risks of bed-sharing can be difficult to grasp in their entirety. Many things can contribute to SIDS, including the parents’ smoking or drinking habits, where the bed-sharing takes place (increased risk has been linked with furniture such as sofas, where there’s less space than in a conventional bed), biological issues such as low birth weight or premature birth, etc. For this reason, many pediatricians will simply recommend room-sharing in every scenario where it is possible.

Health Benefits of Co-Sleeping

Despite what paranoid parents would tell you about risks, co-sleeping offers a good handful of benefits that make it a tempting way to improve your child’s sleep quality (as well as yours) and the speed at which their needs are met. One of the first things you want to consider is accessibility. Even if your baby isn’t in the same bed as you, you can respond to its cries much faster than if it was in a separate room. If you can get your hands on a bedside sleeper, it’s even easier. Bedside sleepers are essentially semi-enclosed baby beds that let the baby sleep very close to the mother without bed-sharing directly. This helps the mother breastfeed without losing a ton of sleep by moving around the house.

Bonding is one of the main purposes of co-sleeping in general. Babies sleep a lot better when they can sense the presence of their parents nearby (especially the mother). A fussing baby can easily be calmed by the mother reaching out and gently stroking the baby’s head and adjusting its position to prevent any health risks. While bed-sharing puts the parent and child into direct physical contact for most of the night and helps them sync up their sleeping schedule for maximum comfort, experts claim it’s not worth risking all the downsides of bed-sharing.

Ideal Bedding Arrangements for Co-Sleeping

Babies and adults need different things from their mattresses. It is particularly notable after attempted bed-sharing – as a rule, adult mattresses are much softer than what is necessary to support the child properly. Babies can accidentally roll over on a mattress that’s too soft, which can block their airways and cause serious health risks. For this reason, baby cribs and bassinet mattresses are purposefully made to be more firm, which keeps the baby comfy and secure.

If you’re using a crib or bassinet to room-share with your baby, make sure they’re positioned in a way that prevents the baby from rolling out of bed or falling into the crevice between the bed and the wall. It’s not very hard to prevent this problem, but it’s priority number one in almost every situation. Move any room furniture out of the way to create an optimal sleeping environment for your child.

Another thing to remember (especially when bed-sharing directly) is that things adults use for extra comfort, such as plush pillows, present a very real suffocation risk for the baby. If you look at pictures of well-arranged cribs, there is nothing in them except for a comfortable fitted sheet. There’s a very good reason for this, since no matter the size, most other soft objects you can put into the crib can block the baby’s airway.

Co-Sleeping Safety Tips

When it comes to co-sleeping and your child’s health and safety, it’s impossible to go overboard with protective and preventive measures. The more confident you are in how you’ve set up your baby’s sleeping environment, the less stressed out you’ll be around the clock, and you can sleep easy knowing that your child’s health is not negatively affected by co-sleeping while you reap its benefits. Here’s the list:

• Always place your baby on his or her back. Any other position risks suffocation and SIDS, as well as potential arm injuries from rolling over. Research shows that SIDS rates in the United States have dropped by as much as 50% since 1994 when awareness was spread of back sleeping as the ideal position for babies.
• There are specific substances that either outright prevent bed-sharing or make it even riskier than it normally is. Smokers should never bed-share, and alcohol consumption has to be avoided if the person in question wishes to bed-share. Unfortunately, even some prescription medication can cause trouble – the idea is that the parent(s) should be able to wake up at a moment’s notice and help their child when necessary. Sleep medication often makes the user much harder to rouse, which creates problems when co-sleeping in general.
• If you are bed-sharing, give the baby enough space away from any pillows or blankets that pose a suffocation risk. It can be a problem if your bed isn’t big enough, but in those cases, you shouldn’t be bed-sharing anyway.
• Only bed-share with one child. Siblings can create a scenario where no one in that bed has enough space to sleep comfortably. Make sure that any pets you might have don’t have a habit of jumping into bed with you, as this can endanger the child by causing entrapment and suffocation.
• If your mattress is soft, avoid bed-sharing at all costs.