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Are You Getting Enough ZZZs?
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Business New Haven
4/19/1999
By: Tammy Rachau
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Thomas Edison slept only a few hours a night. Albert Einstein slept for 13. Debra Pollack, director at the Gaylord New Haven Sleep Disorder Center and member of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology and the American Board of Sleep Medicine, talks about the importance of a good night's sleep and tells readers how to obtain that most elusive commodity.
Tell me about your sleep program at Gaylord.
Gaylord has several sites to its sleep services. It has the original lab that's in Wallingford and, more recently, opened the Sleep Center in New Haven, where I'm based. The New Haven lab now has satellite labs in Fairfield and most recently in West Hartford, which just opened in the last month.
What are some of the most common sleep problems that people report?
In terms of specific, intrinsic sleep disorders, far and away the most commonly referred sleep disorder is sleep apnea - or, specifically obstructive sleep apnea syndrome - where the main symptoms include snoring, sleep disruption and sleepiness during the day. When you have a sleep witness or a spouse, you might get the result of breathing pauses, the true apneas - that's what the word apnea means - not breathing. Those are the cardinal symptoms of that disorder, but if you look at the population as a whole, by far the most common sleep disorder is true insufficient sleep, which means not getting enough sleep every night on a regular basis. This has become a problem with high prevalence in this society and in industrialized societies around the world.
What would you consider an adequate amount of sleep?
An average, healthy adult needs eight hours a night. Generally speaking, the amount of sleep a person gets as he or she grows older will decrease, but the need might not. Older adults seem to feel that they are unable to get the amount of sleep that they need or that they are unable to get it all at once. As people age they find they are unable to get eight hours of continuous sleep. They might get six hours and be more prone to napping during the day. But they still have the same need; they just have a more difficult time sleeping.
What are causes of sleeping problems?
The cause of obstructive sleep apnea syndrome is the throat closing off during the night periodically when a person is asleep. It is commonly seen in people who carry extra weight, but that's not exclusively true because there are thin people with sleep apnea, too. It's seen in the setting of any cause of upper-airway crowding, meaning contributing factors could be something as simple as allergies that make the nose very congested or enlarged tonsils, or other reasons that parts of the throat get enlarged and crowd the airway.
What causes insomnia?
Insomnia has a lot of different causes. One cause of people complaining of insomnia is a true illness called restless leg syndrome, where as people try to relax and wind down for the evening or when they get into bed, they have discomfort in their legs and difficulty keeping their legs still. That causes a complaint of insomnia because they can't fall asleep because of this discomfort. That would be an example of an intrinsic sleep disorder that causes a complaint of insomnia, but insomnia is often caused by people not adhering to good sleeping habits. For example, drinking caffeine or exercising late in the day.
What are some tips you could give to help people sleep more efficiently?
You should exercise regularly, but not late in the day - meaning not after about 6 p.m. Avoid caffeine after noontime; avoid alcohol for six hours before bedtime. People tend to think that alcohol helps them sleep. It may be true that it helps people fall asleep - that it makes them sleepy - but it actually disrupts your sleep later in the night and will cause a complaint of what we call sleep maintenance insomnia, which means that you might fall asleep okay, but you wake up later in the night.
You should have a good bedtime routine. People are very aware of this with children - having them get a bath and read a story, etc. - but it's important for adults as well. For example, sit down at the end of the day and have some quiet time - not in bed - to relax and think about what you've done during the day or plan your schedule for the following day. [It's better] not to save that up so that when you get into bed it comes flooding into your mind.
Anything else?
Allow yourself to wind down at the end of the day and have a bedtime routine that may include washing up, getting into pajamas, etc. I think a lot of adults overlook that routine. You should not do other activities in bed - getting into bed with a stack of magazines, or with work that you brought home, or even television. Particularly if you're having trouble falling asleep, get the television out of the bedroom, turn the clock facing the other way so that you don't watch the clock. Don't do anything in bed except try to go to sleep. Avoid napping, except in certain isolated circumstances.
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