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 …
Modern Sleep Patterns
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 …
Travel, Jet Lag and Mood Disorders
“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 …
True Self Care
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 …
Can Brown Noise Help You Sleep?
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 for Sleep
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 …
Block Out Blue Light at Night
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, …
Job Benefits Mood Stability
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 …
How to Use the Jet Lag Calculator if You’re Not Actually Travelling
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 and Depression
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 …
Sleep Too Much or Too Little
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 …
Bedtime Procrastination
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 …
Melatonin and Sleep Disruption
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 …
Daytime Anxiety Impacts Insomnia
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 and Temperature
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 Insomnia
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 …
Morning People Night People
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 …
Irregular Sleep Patterns and Depression
The link between insomnia and depression is well-established, but a new study shows that even an irregular sleeping pattern, with a normal number of hours of sleep, can affect mood and depression risk. The study, conducted at the University of Michigan, looked at the sleep patterns of medical interns, first year doctors, who complete a year of work under supervision, …
Insomnia Treatment Recommendations
New Research on Insomnia Insomnia remains one of the most troubling problems our clients have to deal with and insomnia treatment is always an important issue for us. Recent updates to insomnia treatment guidelines from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine do not change our current practice radically, but they underline and strengthen the basic recommendation that Cognitive Behavioral Therapy …
Sleep Apps
Getting better sleep – longer, deeper, more restful – is an important part of managing mental illness and healthy lifestyle. Lack of sleep, and interrupted sleep, is one of the most common problems mentioned by our clients, and helping people get better sleep is one of our first goals for management of moods and especially major depression. Sleep technology is, …