Centers for Disease Control and The National Sleep Foundation has been watching you while you sleep. They feel that you need 7-9 hours of sleep each night and you will be at risk of disease, disability and injury.
By studying adult: 35% + reported sleeping less than 7 hours, 48% admitted snoring, fell 40% in sleep at least once a day, and almost 5% fell asleep at the wheel while driving. Cross correlated to age, gender and ethnicity, there were no marked differences between the experience of men and women.
But when it comes to issues of masculinity and cardiovascular disease, men are at higher risk. Now the current study is limited, that is, depending on the accuracy or truth of self-disclosure, the studies are not fully or objectively sound. Although the results are enough to make us look at the impact on the cost of workplace productivity, the risk of mortality and morbidity, and, at least when it comes to men, to an active sex life.
* Remember that sleep may be a sign of illness, addiction, or stress. It can be a symptom of many diseases and results of some, such as hypertension or diabetes.
* And it can be dangerous. It can lead to falls, cuts and other injuries.
* And expensive, dozing on the job could cost employers and workers, especially when they affect the levels of accountability in work that requires alert responsibility.
Sleepless and restless sleepless nights contribute to poor vigilance while driving. It complicates information processing and thus slows reaction time, as much as intoxication does.
But what does it mean for men – more specifically?
* Men who lose sleep are at risk of lower testosterone levels. Asked to provide blood samples in the morning, had men in their 80s a high level of testosterone than later in the day, suggesting that sleep resets their T-level. This assumes of course that 80 year old men sleep better and healthier than younger men, but studies suggest that they do. (This is obviously true for British men, too.)
* Another recent study shows that 50% of men suffer from erectile dysfunction also suffer from obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). It appears that sleep apnea, in disturbing the respiratory system, reduces oxygen to the system which is necessary for hormone balance and sexual mechanics.
* Men who do not sleep well are also at higher risk for cardiovascular disease. Studies by experts at Penn State and Brown University measured a significant thickening of the walls of the carotid artery in men with sleep disorders without corresponding increase in women’s arteries. The carotid artery is the site of many battles, so these results are worrying.
Common sleep disorders:
* Insomnia refers to difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep.
* Parasomnias refers to difficulty sleeping form of sleep, nightmares, bed wetting, frequent urination, etc.
* Restless legs syndrome (RLS) describes a chronic nervous twitching and muscular cramps in the legs, usually known just as you are falling asleep.
* Narcolepsy is a nervous system disorder that allows a patient to fall asleep at inappropriate times during a waking day.
* Sleep apnea refers to stop breathing during sleep for up to 45 seconds at a time until the “sleeping” jerk back awake or in a breathing mode.
Common causes of sleep disorders
Sleep disturbances, and there are others, seems to depend on a number of factors, many of which overlap. This makes definitive diagnosis difficult and slow to come by.
* Diet: Eating after 21:00 means that your system is busy with digestion – not sleeping – when you go to bed. Caffeine, tobacco and alcohol stimulates adrenaline and change the biochemistry and breathing. (It takes four hours for just a cola to work their way out of your system.)
* Too much work: Work hard, physical or mental, can overtax your system, so they are more difficult to restore. Shift work and extended shifts, in particular, shows statistically significant negative effects. (Given that shift workers are, generally, minority workers, they suffer disproportionately.)
* Stress: The body and brain needs time for restoration, so the effect of stress on sleep comes full circle, that is, stress can disrupt your sleep pattern, which in turn leads to more stress.
* Environment: crying babies, noisy neighbors, snoring spouses can all ruin your sleep.
* Disease: Chronic diseases, like diabetes, hypertension and chronic pain syndromes, may be desirable to sleep during the day, just to rob you of sleep at night. Life threatening illnesses like cancer bear its own tensions and fears, and sleep disturbance syndrome.
* Pharmaceuticals: The side effects of certain medications include vivid dreams, insomnia or sleepiness.
* Obesity: Obesity exacerbates problems such as hypertension and diabetes, but the extra weight can be an obstacle to proper breathing cycles.
So, what should we do?
The medical world needs more sleep trained practitioners (somnologists), professionals who can recognize symptoms and syndromes for what they are and provide early care and treatment. They need more and deeper objective research with actigraphy (a portable device that records sleep and wake patterns) and polysomnography (software that measures and analyzes sleep patterns). In addition, men – and women – need to change habits to improve their sleep behaviors, reduce interference and morbidity, and reduce the risk of mortality and morbidity – not to mention improve their sex lives.
* Establish a regular bed time and stick to it. Do a ritual to get ready: for example, read a little or listen to soothing music (in another room), put out the cat, set in cool, Don your pajamas, etc.
* Avoid caffeine, alcohol and food after 9:00. If you can avoid anything after dinner, but if you must, make your own by a cup of non-caffeinated tea.
* Prepare the bed with a firm mattress and a solid but flat pillow, not to raise your head, slow or stop your breathing.
* Schedule medications that interfere with your sleep for any time of day – to the extent you can.
* Do aerobic exercises before resting, but low impact yoga or tai chi can be relaxing. Exercise regularly and actively, but at any other time of day.
* Lose weight if you are carrying too many pounds (more pounds than your size and body type support). Search your doctor and make sure he / she draws the connection between your weight and sleep disorders.
* Ask your GP to refer you to a neurologist or sleep study center. Follow the findings and recommendations that may suggest the use of a sleep medicine or Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) machine, an air pump that pushes air through a face mask in the lungs of patients sleep apnea.
* Discuss homeopathic medicines with your doctor. Some recommend aids such as melatonin or quinine.
Keep a journal of your night and daytime behavior, and examine them in detail with your doctor to see which characters are correlated with the cause. However, with over 20% of the population suffer from any such problems, you need to take sleep seriously.
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