Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “Sleep and Insomnia”
Surviving the time changes from Standard to Daylight Savings and back again, can be a challenge, and in our practice at Gateway Psychiatric, we always see an uptick in the numbers of people reporting sleep disruption and/or hypomania during the Northern Hemisphere spring. At the beginning of Spring and Fall, in higher latitudes both North and South, the length of …
Wearable devices are becoming more and more popular, and people are using them in a range of ways that may or may not follow the instructions for use given by the manufacturers. Even more concerning, the companies that market these devices do not publish data about how they have been shown to work, or about the algorithms used to analyse …
Another interesting entry in the Sleep App market! Sleepwave promises a completely different approach to insomnia: focusing on the wakeup time instead of bedtime. This aligns with what we have said about changing when you sleep – focus on setting an appropriate wakeup time rather than trying to go to sleep earlier. According to the company, a regular alarm, whether …
Insomnia and struggle Poverty and social deprivation are better indicators of the risk of poor sleep than sex, income level, age, employment or education. An analysis of a public health information database in the U.K. looked at the responses of 500,000 people and found that almost one-third of them reported sleeping less or more than the recommended 7 hours per …
Insomnia is complicated! Poor sleep and feeling tired are one of the topics that we engage in the most with our patients who experience depressed and/or elevated moods. We have found that there is a very strong belief among Americans that 8 hours’ sleep is the ideal towards which we should always be striving. This paradigm comes from the early …
“I really adjusted fast, it was miraculous…” Patients who travel are familiar with warnings and advice we give about the potential for moods to get unbalanced or even out of control as a result of jet lag and time changes on international flights. Recently, Jason, who was making a 15-hour time change for his honeymoon, reported back on the helpfulness …
Self-care is critical for a healthy life. Because we can’t meet others’ needs if our own go unheeded. Because to lead by example for our families, for our workplaces, for our communities, we have to show what a healthy life looks like. Because self-care is not a reward, it’s the basic fuel that keeps the whole show running. But how …
Lisa, a patient of ours, was excited to share her use of brown noise for getting a good night’s sleep. “All I gotta say is, I’m waking up refreshed and rested, where before I just felt awful in the morning. I haven’t even looked into the data on my sleep app, I just know I feel better when I use …
Using cannabis to help you sleep: do your research first In popular culture, pot is supposed to make you calm and sleepy, so it seems to make sense that if you’re having trouble getting to sleep, marijuana might be the way to go. As it becomes legal in more states for medical use, and even for recreational purposes, more and …
Electronic screens of all kinds emit light, especially from the blue end of the color spectrum, and blue light is known to increase insomnia and disrupt circadian rhythms. Our ancestors woke up when the sun rose, and went to bed when it set, with maybe a brief lengthening of waking times using firelight or lamplight. Nowadays, however, we have light, …
Can full-time work stabilize mood? We had a really encouraging session with a patient this week; she had a lot of insight into her needs, and also had begun taking her medications regularly, which had been almost impossible for her in the past. What made the difference? She had started working full time. After huge layoffs in 2020, the job …
People with mood disorders often struggle to establish healthy circadian rhythms. They often go to sleep later than they should, and wake up later as well. This affects mood as well as ability to participate in normal life. For someone who is going to sleep at 4:00 am and waking up at 1:00 pm, changing to a better sleep pattern …
Exercise is more than just cardio Moderate exercise is associated with lower rates of depression, longer life and reduced cognitive impairment in a number of recent studies. Evidence is accumulating that exercise is for more than just cardio-vascular health, and confers significant benefits at all stages of life. A 2019 observational study looked at exercise rates correlated with depression rates …
Are you getting your seven hours? Although tradition recommends eight hours’ sleep each night, research is coming more and more to the conclusion that seven hours is best, and eight or more can be too much, causing as many problems as too little sleep. A recent study, using data from the U.K. Biobank, a national database of individuals in the …
Bipolar and sleep disruption People with bipolar can have as much sleep disruption in a week that those without mood disorders will experience in a much longer time frame. Mood swings can cause major changes in sleep patterns and disrupted sleep makes it much more difficult to maintain mood stability. That’s why MoodSurfing offers so many resources about sleep and …
Sleep and melatonin Sleep-disruption and circadian rhythm-disruption problems are quite common in people with mood disorders, and insomnia is one of the most common symptoms we help patients deal with. Far and away the best treatment for any kind of insomnia is Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT), which we use in a wide variety of situations. In the case of sleep …
Insomnia has often been related to anxiety and worry at bedtime, but recent research has linked daytime worry and rumination to nighttime insomnia. People often realize that their thinking patterns at night are keeping them awake, but may not consider the impact of worrying that they did earlier in the day to their sleep patterns at night. Anxious, repetitive thinking …
Sleep patterns in pre-industrial communities highlight the importance of temperature changes What is the connection between insomnia and the modern lifestyle? It has been hypothesized that we sleep less well now than our ancestors did, either because of electric lighting, electronic devices, or increased entertainment options. However, a group of scientists studying sleep patterns among members of hunter-gatherer tribes in …
Winter time insomnia For many, winter is a time to hibernate and sleep more, but others struggle more with insomnia when the mornings are dark. A patient recently shared some morning routines she has discovered to battle both insomnia and depression during the darker months. “I still try to wake up at 6:30 am, which gives me a little bit …
Misalignment of daily schedule and body clock linked to depression Are you a morning person or a night person? This may be more than just a preference for day work or night work, researchers have isolated genes that are linked to differences in circadian rhythms, and are now studying how this genetic preference may play out in people’s work and …
